Her Ex­cel­len­cy Chris­tine Car­la Kan­ga­loo, O.R.T.T., Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go has ap­point­ed nine In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors who will serve in the 13th Par­lia­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go, which opens to­day, Fri­day May 23, 2025.

The First Ses­sion of the 13th Re­pub­li­can Par­lia­ment com­mences with a cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing at the Red House.

Af­ter the Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate and the Speak­er of the House are elect­ed and take their oaths or af­fir­ma­tions, fol­lowed by mem­bers of both Hous­es, Her Ex­cel­len­cy will ad­dress mem­bers of both Hous­es.

The nine In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors ap­point­ed to the 13th Par­lia­ment are:

● Mr. An­tho­ny Vieira SC is re­turn­ing to Par­lia­ment as an In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor, a po­si­tion he held in the 10th, 11th and 12th Par­lia­ments. Mr. Vieira has been an at­tor­ney-at-law since 1983 in the civ­il, in­dus­tri­al, fam­i­ly and crim­i­nal courts and is cer­ti­fied in Sports Ar­bi­tra­tion and as an Ad­vanced Com­mer­cial Me­di­a­tor. He was ap­point­ed Se­nior Coun­sel on 8 May 2023. Mr Vieira has act­ed as Le­gal Con­sul­tant to the Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion, a train­er for Of­fi­cers of the Min­istry of Con­sumer Af­fairs on Con­sumer Leg­is­la­tion and Prac­tice and was in­volved in the re­view and draft­ing of the Copy­right Bill and the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Bill (2000).

● Mr. De­oroop Teemal is a se­nior Civ­il En­gi­neer and Project Man­ag­er with 44 years’ ex­pe­ri­ence in Con­tract Ad­min­is­tra­tion, Con­struc­tion Im­ple­men­ta­tion and Wa­ter and Waste wa­ter En­gi­neer­ing. In the so­cio-cul­tur­al field, he has been Pres­i­dent of the Hin­du Swayam­se­vak Sangh since 1998 and Pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture since 2023. He has served as an In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor since No­vem­ber 2018 and was the Chair­man of the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on Land and Phys­i­cal In­fra­struc­ture.

● Mr. Michael Si­mon de la Bastide SC was called to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Bar in Ju­ly 1994 and prac­tis­es out of Athena Cham­bers. His ar­eas of prac­tice in­clude civ­il lit­i­ga­tion and in par­tic­u­lar mar­itime/ad­mi­ral­ty lit­i­ga­tion, con­struc­tion lit­i­ga­tion, med­ical neg­li­gence lit­i­ga­tion, con­tract dis­putes, tort claims and per­son­al in­jury lit­i­ga­tion. He has act­ed for a va­ri­ety of clients in­clud­ing multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions, State cor­po­ra­tions, lead­ing bank­ing in­sur­ance and oth­er fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions, ship­ping com­pa­nies, civ­il con­struc­tion com­pa­nies as well as small­er ser­vice-based com­pa­nies and for pri­vate in­di­vid­u­als. He has ap­peared in the High Court, the Court of Ap­peal and the Privy Coun­cil.

● Dr. Mar­lene Attzs is a re­spect­ed econ­o­mist and aca­d­e­m­ic who is a tenured Lec­tur­er in Eco­nom­ics at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St. Au­gus­tine. Dr. Attzs has ded­i­cat­ed her ca­reer to study­ing top­ics re­lat­ing to sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment in­clud­ing the chal­lenges posed by cli­mate change in the Caribbean. She is well known as pub­lic com­men­ta­tor on na­tion­al and re­gion­al so­cio-eco­nom­ic is­sues. She has worked as a con­sul­tant to many na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty-based or­gan­i­sa­tions as well as re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions in­clud­ing the Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank, the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment bank and the Unit­ed Na­tions De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme.

● Dr. De­sirée Mur­ray is a tenured Se­nior Lec­tur­er in Oph­thal­mol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St. Au­gus­tine. She is the Hon­orary Con­sul­tant Oph­thal­mol­o­gist and con­tin­ues to con­tribute to the elim­i­na­tion of avoid­able blind­ness lo­cal­ly, re­gion­al­ly and glob­al­ly through ed­u­ca­tion, re­search, train­ing and ser­vice de­liv­ery. Dr. Mur­ray is chair­per­son of The Vol­un­teers for World Sight Day, a reg­is­tered NGO and is the au­thor of nu­mer­ous pub­li­ca­tions in her field.

● Mr. Court­ney Mc Nish has ex­ten­sive Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment and In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions ex­pe­ri­ence. He is the Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of Hu­man Re­source Tech­nolo­gies Lim­it­ed where he is the prin­ci­pal ad­vi­sor to mul­ti­ple clients with­in the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors on all op­er­a­tional and strate­gic mat­ters of Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment, In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions prac­tices and Labour Law. Mr. Mc Nish is a guest lec­tur­er in the MBA pro­gramme at the three main cam­pus­es of The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies.

● Ms Can­dice Jones-Sim­mons born in To­ba­go, is an At­tor­ney-at-Law with ex­pe­ri­ence in tri­al prepa­ra­tion, con­veyanc­ing prac­tice, re­search and draft­ing le­gal doc­u­ments. Ms Jones-Sim­mons is a Tu­tor/Course Di­rec­tor at the Coun­cil of Ed­u­ca­tion Hugh Wood­ing Law School, man­ag­ing and su­per­vis­ing As­so­ciate Tu­tors and en­sur­ing teach­ing and de­liv­ery of course con­tent. Pri­or to this, Ms Jones-Sim­mons was a part­ner with Lex Caribbean and, lat­er, M. Hamel-Smith and Co.

● Mrs Ali­cia Lalite-Et­ti­enne is an MBA grad­u­ate trained in the Hu­man Re­sources field with spe­cial­ized ex­pe­ri­ence in the area of dis­abil­i­ty train­ing and em­ploy­ment. She is the first vi­su­al­ly im­paired per­son to sit in the Sen­ate. She is an ex­pe­ri­enced Train­er/Teacher, Con­sul­tant, Mar­keter and Con­fer­ence Pre­sen­ter in the ar­eas of com­put­er ac­cess tech­nol­o­gy, de­vel­op­ment of spe­cial­ized li­braries for the blind and vi­su­al­ly im­paired, dis­abil­i­ty aware­ness and at­ti­tu­di­nal change to­wards per­sons with dis­abil­i­ty. Mrs Lalite-Et­ti­enne is cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing a Ph.D. in Busi­ness Ad­min­is­tra­tion at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St. Au­gus­tine.

● Mr. Fran­cis M. Lewis is a strate­gist, mar­keter and busi­ness de­vel­op­ment leader with 40 years’ ex­pe­ri­ence in di­verse sec­tors in­clud­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing, ser­vices and the pub­lic sec­tor. Mr. Lewis is the Se­nior Con­sul­tant and Di­rec­tor of Res Con­sult­ing Lim­it­ed. He al­so serves as a Se­nior Ad­junct Pro­fes­sor at the UWI-Lok Jack Glob­al School of Busi­ness. He has served as Chair­man of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Se­cu­ri­ties and Ex­change Com­mis­sion and as Vice-Chair­man of the Na­tion­al Coun­cil for Com­pet­i­tive­ness and In­no­va­tion.