Opposition MP Rodney Charles, the Member of Parliament for Naparima, is taking issue with comments made by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, that that Opposition had done a poor job of drafting its Motion to impeach the President over the Police Service Commission issue.
In fact, MP Charles asserts “the Motion was well written and outlined the facts as required”, contrary to what PM Rowley would have the country believe.
In a strongly worded release issued today, MP Charles asks the question: “How in Heaven’s name can anyone lay out a comprehensive argument against Her Excellency in 250 words?”
The Opposition MP also laments the fact that the country “has been denied a fulsome debate on why the PSC essentially collapsed”, among other critical issues.
The following is the full text of the statement issued today by the Naparima MP…
The PM is wrong. The Motion was well written and outlined the facts as required.
Rowley, aware that many do not critically analyze what he says, tends to spew rubbish and lies (like Emailgate) knowing full well that the media, armchair experts, closet PNMites and anonymous Facebook commentators accept them as gospel.
The latest is that the Motion, partially read in Parliament, was too brief and poorly drafted.
Is the PM aware that Standing Order 40 of the HOR, limits the number of words used to 250?
How in Heaven’s name can anyone lay out a comprehensive argument against Her Excellency in 250 words?
And can anyone indicate what basic information was not included in the Motion as presented?
Yet unthinkingly many accept Rowley’s nonsense, falsely concocted, and repeated ad nauseam.
He did the same with Emailgate and was able to sustain that falsehood for many months even through a general election getting no less a person than the acting DPP to assert some unheard of merit in examining events "outside the four corners" of the evidence.
A Motion, according to our Standing Orders (SO 40), is a skeletal statement of your main arguments. Its purpose is to “indicate the issue to be raised for debate and include only such material as may be necessary to identify the facts or matter to which the motion relates”.
It presupposes a debate. It was accepted by the Speaker, the only one with authority to do so.
Instead of hiding behind the Speaker’s dress, Rowley should have aired his concerns in Parliament.
Furthermore, Standing Order 34 states that “subject to the provisions of the Constitution and these Standing Orders, any Member may introduce any Bill or propose any motion for debate in the House”. This would imply that both the Constitution and the SOs must be taken together.
One must ask if a Motion is before the House, and the Constitution is silent on the matter of a debate, should the SOs not prevail?
This is a matter for our courts, but in the interim TT has been denied a fulsome debate on why the PSC essentially collapsed, whether H.E. was unduly influenced by the Executive, and the arguments against the Motion by members of the independent bench.