RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Women who have been si­lenced, abused, and mar­gin­alised will find a pow­er­ful al­ly in the Whistle­blow­er Pro­tec­tion Bill 2022 if it is passed, says Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor Lau­rel Leza­ma-Lee Sing as she cham­pi­oned the Bill in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day.

Dur­ing her con­tri­bu­tion, Leza­ma-Lee Sing said the ground­break­ing leg­is­la­tion promis­es to cre­ate a safer, more just en­vi­ron­ment for whistle­blow­ers, es­pe­cial­ly women.

Say­ing it was a cru­cial safe­guard for women, Leza­ma-Lee Sing not­ed, “We can­not stand here and pre­tend that we live in a non-sex­ist so­ci­ety. Women are eas­i­ly preyed up­on and judged. This leg­is­la­tion is par­tic­u­lar­ly for women, al­low­ing them to come for­ward with cer­tain guar­an­tees and pro­tec­tions.”

She urged her col­leagues, es­pe­cial­ly the women on the Op­po­si­tion bench, to recog­nise the bill’s ben­e­fits.

“We have all been vic­tims of ha­rass­ment, dis­crim­i­na­tion, and in­tim­i­da­tion in the work­place. This leg­is­la­tion of­fers us a safe­guard. I com­mend this bill and en­cour­age all mem­bers to sup­port it,” she said.

How­ev­er, the sen­a­tor did not hold back in her crit­i­cism of the Op­po­si­tion’s stance.

“The Op­po­si­tion is try­ing to in­stil fear in the pop­u­la­tion, claim­ing this is bad leg­is­la­tion. I am con­cerned about their lack of sup­port. Sen­a­tor Mark de­scribed it as ma­li­cious, but our pro­posed law is com­pre­hen­sive. What is the Op­po­si­tion hid­ing? Why do they want the pop­u­la­tion to re­ject this?” she ques­tioned.

She not­ed that the Gov­ern­ment was in­tent on es­tab­lish­ing a le­gal frame­work to com­bat cor­rup­tion, but the Op­po­si­tion’s re­sis­tance was con­cern­ing.

Mean­while, In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Dr Maria Dil­lon-Re­my high­light­ed the im­por­tance of ef­fec­tive en­force­ment and im­ple­men­ta­tion. She ques­tioned the hir­ing pro­ce­dures for of­fi­cers un­der the bill and em­pha­sised the need for vig­i­lance.

She said the of­fi­cers hired must have strong lead­er­ship skills and good moral val­ues.

“Fear of reprisals can be over­come by rais­ing aware­ness of rules and pro­ce­dures. We must en­sure that once a dis­clo­sure is made, it does not dis­ap­pear. High penal­ties are in place for false re­port­ing, but we must en­sure trans­paren­cy and pro­tec­tion for whistle­blow­ers,” Dil­lon-Re­my said.

She re­it­er­at­ed the need for strong lead­er­ship and val­ues at the high­est lev­els, es­pe­cial­ly with­in min­istries.

“Good lead­ers with strong val­ues will cre­ate the right en­vi­ron­ment. This cul­ture change is nec­es­sary to en­sure whistle­blow­ers feel safe and con­fi­dent,” she added.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Karunaa Bis­ram­s­ingh said the leg­is­la­tion must pro­tect anony­mous whistle­blow­ers as well.

She ex­pressed con­cerns about the lack of pro­tec­tion for anony­mous dis­clo­sures say­ing, “Sec­tion 9 does not pro­tect anony­mous dis­clo­sures, which could dis­cour­age whistle­blow­ers from com­ing for­ward.” Bis­ram­s­ingh added, “Whistle­blow­ers should have the right to re­main anony­mous, and these re­ports should be equal­ly pro­tect­ed.”

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor De­oroop Teemal al­so raised is­sues, not­ing the ab­sence of le­gal ad­vice for whistle­blow­ers un­der the leg­is­la­tion.

“The im­mu­ni­ty of­fered in Sec­tion 80 does not ful­ly pro­tect whistle­blow­ers. This could de­ter po­ten­tial whistle­blow­ers, es­pe­cial­ly those wish­ing to re­main anony­mous,” Teemal warned.

The Gov­ern­ment has pi­lot­ed the Whistle­blow­er Pro­tec­tion Bill 2022 as a piv­otal piece of leg­is­la­tion geared to­wards en­cour­ag­ing trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty in T&T.