The Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go has con­demned what it de­scribed as “un­war­rant­ed at­tacks on the in­de­pen­dence and in­tegri­ty of the in­de­pen­dent bench in the Sen­ate,” warn­ing that the trend of un­der­min­ing pub­lic in­sti­tu­tions must be “reined in.”

In a state­ment is­sued on Ju­ly 6, the As­so­ci­a­tion said it was “deeply con­cerned” by the pub­lic crit­i­cism lev­elled at in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors who did not sup­port the Prime Min­is­ter’s Pen­sion (Amend­ment) Bill, 2025.

“Sad­ly, how­ev­er, par­tic­u­lar­ly where our pub­lic in­sti­tu­tions and pub­lic fig­ures are con­cerned, their in­de­pen­dence and in­tegri­ty are of­ten called in­to ques­tion when­ev­er they hold or ex­press views or per­spec­tives which dif­fer from those of our politi­cians,” the re­lease said. “This is a trend which must be reined in.”

The As­so­ci­a­tion warned that at­tack­ing in­di­vid­u­als for ex­press­ing dif­fer­ing opin­ions erodes pub­lic trust in democ­ra­cy.

“It is not in our na­tion’s in­ter­est, for the cit­i­zen­ry, many of whom are like­ly to have some po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion, to be en­cour­aged to be­lieve, that every time views and per­spec­tives are ex­pressed which dif­fer from their own, the per­sons ex­press­ing them are un­prin­ci­pled or are lack­ing in in­de­pen­dence and in­tegri­ty.”

The state­ment fol­lowed scathing pub­lic re­marks from the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), in­clud­ing from po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and par­ty PRO Dr Kirk Meighoo. At a press con­fer­ence one day be­fore the Sen­ate de­bate, Meighoo ac­cused the in­de­pen­dent bench of be­ing tools of the PNM, say­ing they were ap­point­ed by Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, a known al­ly of the rul­ing par­ty. He claimed that sup­port for the bill would al­low the PNM “to con­tin­ue to rape the Trea­sury, even in Op­po­si­tion.”

The bill ul­ti­mate­ly passed with sup­port from five in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors. It sets a new re­quire­ment that a prime min­is­ter must serve at least one year in of­fice to re­ceive a pen­sion and ap­plies retroac­tive­ly, dis­qual­i­fy­ing for­mer PM Stu­art Young, who served on­ly six weeks.

In Par­lia­ment, Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark re­buked the UNC’s at­tacks, call­ing them ha­rass­ment and in­tim­i­da­tion. He warned that such con­duct “strikes at the very heart of par­lia­men­tary democ­ra­cy” and may con­sti­tute a breach of priv­i­lege.

“When words or ac­tions cross the line in­to ha­rass­ment, in­tim­i­da­tion or at­tempts to shame sen­a­tors for how they vote or pres­sure them to vote in a par­tic­u­lar way… it will not be tol­er­at­ed,” he said.

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira, who ab­stained on the bill, al­so pushed back, say­ing per­sua­sion and not threats was the ap­pro­pri­ate way to earn sup­port from non-par­ti­san sen­a­tors. He de­fend­ed the bench’s track record, not­ing that in­de­pen­dents had sided with the Op­po­si­tion ear­li­er this year on oth­er leg­is­la­tion when flaws were iden­ti­fied.

The Law As­so­ci­a­tion re­mind­ed the pub­lic that the in­de­pen­dent bench plays a vi­tal con­sti­tu­tion­al role in en­sur­ing di­verse, non-par­ti­san in­put in law-mak­ing.

“Mem­bers of the in­de­pen­dent bench in the Sen­ate are se­lect­ed by the Pres­i­dent to rep­re­sent var­i­ous in­ter­est groups. They are not nom­i­nat­ed by the lead­ers of the re­spec­tive po­lit­i­cal par­ties.”

It al­so re­ject­ed the no­tion that in­de­pen­dence on­ly ap­plies when a vote aligns with a par­tic­u­lar par­ty.

“It is not clear what ra­tio­nal ba­sis there is for sug­gest­ing that the In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors who sup­port­ed the bill were in­de­pen­dent and free of Op­po­si­tion in­flu­ence, but that those who did not sup­port the bill were not.”

The As­so­ci­a­tion said de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­ci­eties de­pend on “strong and in­de­pen­dent thinkers,” and that healthy dis­agree­ment must not be weaponised.

“We live in a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­ci­ety in which we are like­ly to en­counter dif­fer­ences of views and per­spec­tives on al­most every top­ic. The health of our democ­ra­cy can be gauged by the man­ner in which such dif­fer­ences are nav­i­gat­ed.”