Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice leader and for­mer sen­a­tor David Ab­du­lah says the Op­po­si­tion Leader should have act­ed more de­ci­sive­ly amid the con­tro­ver­sy in­volv­ing Sen­a­tor Janelle John-Bates.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day, Ab­du­lah said the de­lay by Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les in ad­dress­ing the mat­ter re­flect­ed a lack of ac­count­abil­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly af­ter John-Bates ad­mit­ted to what she de­scribed as a mis­judge­ment.

The is­sue cen­tres on John-Bates as­sist­ing for­mer health min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh with a state­ment sub­mit­ted to the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee (PAAC) on which she served.

Ab­du­lah said once it be­came clear that John-Bates had par­tic­i­pat­ed in prepar­ing the state­ment for a wit­ness ap­pear­ing be­fore a com­mit­tee of which she was a mem­ber, ac­tion should have been im­me­di­ate.

“This sit­u­a­tion has dragged on for too long in terms of how the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion has dealt with it,” Ab­du­lah said.

He added that John-Bates should have re­signed right away or re­moved by Beck­les.

“That mis­judge­ment was a no-no… she should have re­signed right away or of­fered a res­ig­na­tion right away… or the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion should have re­moved her im­me­di­ate­ly, not just from be­ing a mem­ber of the com­mit­tee, but re­al­ly re­mov­ing her as a sen­a­tor,” he said.

Ab­du­lah said such a move would have re­duced the pro­longed back-and-forth that fol­lowed. He said as an at­tor­ney with years of ex­pe­ri­ence, John-Bates should have un­der­stood her in­ves­tiga­tive role on the com­mit­tee and avoid­ed as­sist­ing a wit­ness due to ap­pear be­fore it.

Ab­du­lah al­so raised ques­tions about the in­volve­ment of Faris Al-Rawi, who he said helped Deyals­ingh pre­pare the state­ment.

“The ques­tion aris­es as to whether he knew, ex­plic­it­ly knew, what Ms John-Bates was do­ing and, there­fore, what his ad­vice to her and/or Mr Deyals­ingh would have been in that cir­cum­stance. And those facts have to emerge and come out,” Ab­du­lah said.

He added that while Al-Rawi has said he was act­ing as Deyals­ingh’s at­tor­ney, fur­ther clar­i­ty is need­ed.