An­na-Lisa Paul

As the im­broglio in­volv­ing the po­lit­i­cal leader of the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) Wat­son Duke and Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Far­ley Au­gus­tine deep­ened last night– a con­cerned cit­i­zen yes­ter­day filed a con­sti­tu­tion­al mo­tion to pre­vent the THA from mov­ing ahead to elect a new Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary to­day.

Act­ing on be­half of Krys­tal Fordyce, a reg­is­tered elec­tor from the Dar­rel Spring/Whim dis­trict–at­tor­ney Vishaal Siewsaran of the Free­dom Law Cham­bers, San Fer­nan­do, despatched a three-page let­ter ad­dressed to the THA’s Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer Ab­by Tay­lor; Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour late last evening—in which he in­di­cat­ed the sched­uled move by Au­gus­tine to elect a new Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary would be “il­le­gal and un­con­sti­tu­tion­al” as, “The pur­port­ed res­ig­na­tion of Mr Wat­son Duke as Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary is in­valid and in­ef­fec­tive in law.”

Siewsaran had giv­en the THA up to 12 o’clock last night to re­spond to the mo­tion, fail­ing which, he would have sought an im­me­di­ate in­junc­tion to re­strain the THA from con­tin­u­ing with the pro­posed elec­tion.

On Fri­day, Duke re­voked Au­gus­tine’s ap­point­ment as a deputy leader of the PDP.

And in a re­lease post­ed to Face­book lat­er in the day, Duke al­so re­voked the ap­point­ments of the two oth­er deputies in­clud­ing Dr Faith B Yis­rael and Ali­cia Roberts-Pat­ter­son.

B Yis­rael is the Sec­re­tary for Health, Well­ness and So­cial Pro­tec­tion and as­sem­bly­man for Belle Gar­den/Glam­or­gan.

As per the re­vo­ca­tions–Au­gus­tine, B Yis­rael and Roberts-Pat­ter­son were ren­dered or­di­nary mem­bers of the par­ty.

In a let­ter ad­dressed to Au­gus­tine dat­ed Sep­tem­ber 15, Duke pur­port­ed to re­sign as Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary of the THA—a sub­mis­sion Au­gus­tine ac­knowl­edged via a let­ter dat­ed Sep­tem­ber 17, fol­low­ing which he in­di­cat­ed that it had been for­ward­ed to the pres­i­dent and the THA’s pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer for ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tion.

Au­gus­tine lat­er gave no­tice that there would be a spe­cial sit­ting of the THA to­day, to elect a new Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary.

In his let­ter yes­ter­day, Siewsaran wrote, “Our client is con­cerned to en­sure that the rule of law is re­spect­ed and up­held and is of the view that Mr Duke’s pur­port­ed res­ig­na­tion is in­valid, il­le­gal, null and void and of no le­gal ef­fect.”

He added, “In or­der to ten­der a law­ful res­ig­na­tion, Mr Duke must, of his own vo­li­tion, ten­der his per­son­al let­ter of res­ig­na­tion to the Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer of the As­sem­bly and the Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Un­der sec­tion 8 of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Act, the Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary is elect­ed by the As­sem­bly­men and the Pres­i­dent ad­min­is­ters the oath of of­fice.”

Sec­tion 142 of the Con­sti­tu­tion gov­erns the ques­tion of res­ig­na­tion and pro­vides “(1) Sub­ject to the pro­vi­sions of this Con­sti­tu­tion, any per­son who is ap­point­ed or elect­ed to or oth­er­wise se­lect­ed for any of­fice es­tab­lished by this Con­sti­tu­tion, in­clud­ing the of­fice of Prime Min­is­ter or oth­er Min­is­ter, or Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary, may re­sign from that of­fice by writ­ing un­der his hand ad­dressed to the per­son or au­thor­i­ty by whom he was ap­point­ed, elect­ed or se­lect­ed;” and, “(2) The res­ig­na­tion of any per­son from any such of­fice shall take ef­fect when the writ­ing sig­ni­fy­ing the res­ig­na­tion is re­ceived by the per­son or au­thor­i­ty to whom it is ad­dressed or by any per­son au­tho­rised by that per­son or au­thor­i­ty to re­ceive it.”

Siewsaran stat­ed, “In the cir­cum­stances, it is abun­dant­ly clear that the pur­port­ed res­ig­na­tion of Mr Wat­son Duke as Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary is in­valid and in­ef­fec­tive in law. There be­ing no va­can­cy, it will be il­le­gal and un­con­sti­tu­tion­al for the THA to elect a new Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary. Un­til such time that Mr Duke ten­ders his res­ig­na­tion in ac­cor­dance with the law, there is no va­can­cy to prompt and fa­cil­i­tate such an elec­tion.”

He said they had been in­struct­ed to, “file an ap­pli­ca­tion for an ad­min­is­tra­tive or­der in ac­cor­dance with Part 56 of the Civ­il Pro­ceed­ings Rules of Court to seek a de­c­la­ra­tion that on a cor­rect in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the law, Mr Duke’s pur­port­ed res­ig­na­tion is in­valid, null and void and of no le­gal ef­fect and hence, there is no va­cant of­fice of Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary to be filled.”

“We call up­on you to not pro­ceed with the pur­port­ed elec­tion of a new Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary at this spe­cial sit­ting of the THA on Mon­day 19 Sep­tem­ber 2022 at 10.30 am. We seek an ur­gent and im­me­di­ate for­mal un­der­tak­ing from you by mid­night tonight fail­ing which, we have been in­struct­ed to seek an im­me­di­ate in­junc­tion to re­strain the THA from do­ing so.”

The at­tor­ney said it would be an ex­er­cise in fu­til­i­ty and would cause grave em­bar­rass­ment to the THA if it pro­ceed­ed to act in such an il­le­gal and un­con­sti­tu­tion­al man­ner.

He said, “This will con­vey the un­for­tu­nate im­pres­sion that the THA is pre­pared to vi­o­late the con­sti­tu­tion and the rule of law and ride roughshod over the rights of the elec­torate that vot­ed the present As­sem­bly­men in­to of­fice. It would be in the pub­lic in­ter­est for this is­sue to be re­solved by the court in an ex­pe­di­tious man­ner.”