Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Con­sti­tu­tion­al af­fairs ex­pert Pro­fes­sor Hamid Ghany is push­ing back against for­mer House Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George’s de­fence of her 2017 cast­ing votes, ar­gu­ing that her ex­pla­na­tion about pre­serv­ing the par­lia­men­tary sta­tus quo does not re­flect the po­lit­i­cal cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing those de­ci­sions.

An­nisette-George had re­ject­ed com­par­isons be­tween her cast­ing votes and Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark’s de­cid­ing vote to pass the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill, ar­gu­ing that her votes nev­er de­ter­mined the fate of sub­stan­tive leg­is­la­tion. She main­tained that they in­stead pre­served the sta­tus quo or al­lowed par­lia­men­tary pro­ceed­ings to con­tin­ue.

But in a re­sponse ti­tled “Chal­leng­ing the Speak­er,” Ghany said he was chal­leng­ing her “post-event in­ter­pre­ta­tion” of what oc­curred in 2017.

Ghany point­ed first to March 15, 2017, when the House was tied 16-16 on a Gov­ern­ment mo­tion to ad­journ de­bate on the In­dictable Of­fences (Pre-Tri­al Pro­ce­dure) Bill.

Ac­cord­ing to Ghany, the cir­cum­stances sug­gest the ad­journ­ment was dri­ven not by a de­sire to fa­cil­i­tate fur­ther de­bate, but by the Gov­ern­ment lack­ing suf­fi­cient num­bers at the time.

He not­ed that af­ter An­nisette-George ex­er­cised her cast­ing vote, the House did not ad­journ for the day but moved on to an­oth­er piece of leg­is­la­tion. Ghany said then min­is­ter Stu­art Young sub­se­quent­ly ar­rived, giv­ing the Gov­ern­ment the num­bers it need­ed to con­tin­ue its busi­ness.

He al­so chal­lenged An­nisette-George’s ex­pla­na­tion of three cast­ing votes on Sep­tem­ber 8, 2017.

Ghany cit­ed the Hansard show­ing then Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Leader Camille Robin­son-Reg­is ac­knowl­edg­ing that one Gov­ern­ment MP was un­ex­pect­ed­ly ab­sent be­cause of ill­ness when she sought to ad­journ de­bate on Sen­ate amend­ments.

Ghany there­fore con­tends that the 17-17 dead­locks that fol­lowed were again linked to the Gov­ern­ment's in­abil­i­ty to muster suf­fi­cient MPs, rather than a broad­er prin­ci­ple of al­low­ing fur­ther par­lia­men­tary con­sid­er­a­tion.

“The ac­tu­al votes that day re­veal that the sta­tus quo ar­gu­ment was re­al­ly a cloak for par­lia­men­tary mis­man­age­ment on the part of the Gov­ern­ment Whips,” Ghany ar­gued, say­ing they failed to en­sure suf­fi­cient MPs were present.

Ghany dis­agreed with An­nisette-George’s dis­tinc­tion be­tween her de­ci­sions and Mark’s, main­tain­ing that the lo­cal prac­tice changed in 2017 when the cast­ing vote was used four times amid what he de­scribes as a Gov­ern­ment “par­lia­men­tary mis­man­age­ment cri­sis.”