Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Nigel de Fre­itas was forced to lec­ture mem­bers of the up­per house about their con­duct and to sus­pend yes­ter­day’s sit­ting for fif­teen min­utes af­ter an ex­ple­tive was used dur­ing de­bate, which caused an up­roar from the Op­po­si­tion Bench.

On Tues­day, Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al-Ram­di­al brought for­ward a pri­vate mo­tion call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment “to reaf­firm its com­mit­ment to the prin­ci­ples and the prac­tice of democ­ra­cy in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Sen­a­tor Lutch­me­di­al-Ram­di­al ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of erod­ing this coun­try’s democ­ra­cy by in­ter­fer­ing with in­de­pen­dent bod­ies like the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC), the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) and the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion.

She told the Sen­ate, “We find our­selves with a gov­ern­ment that un­for­tu­nate­ly has been char­ac­terised and will go down in his­to­ry as be­ing de­fined by at­tempts to de­lay elec­tions, crit­i­cisms and at­tacks levied against in­de­pen­dent of­fices like the DPP and the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion. The ‘bouf­fin’ of the me­dia and pri­vate cit­i­zens when they voice crit­i­cism and con­cern over par­tic­u­lar mat­ters. Se­cret in­dem­ni­ty deals struck with­out the knowl­edge of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions. A mer­it list that can go miss­ing and a Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion that can col­lapse. At­tempts to in­ter­fere with the process of ap­point­ing a Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and util­is­ing their ma­jor­i­ty in Par­lia­ment to weak­en watch­dog in­sti­tu­tions like the Of­fice of the Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor.”

Sen­a­tor Lutch­me­di­al-Ram­di­al used the ex­am­ple of the re­cent de­bate in the low­er house where the Gov­ern­ment sought to amend the con­sti­tu­tion to al­low the PolSC to ap­point an act­ing Com­mis­sion­er or Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice for a time not ex­ceed­ing 21 days with­out par­lia­men­tary ap­proval.

“I am here to call on the Gov­ern­ment to cease and de­sist from their bla­tant in­ter­fer­ence in state in­sti­tu­tions, pub­lic of­fices and to cease as well the re­lent­less at­tacks on those whose job it is to hold them to ac­count,” she said to loud desk thump­ing from her op­po­si­tion col­leagues.

How­ev­er, in re­sponse, gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor Renu­ka Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal said the op­po­si­tion sen­a­tors were hyp­ocrites.

Start­ing with their po­lit­i­cal leader whom she called “Kam­la the Crit­ic”, she called out Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for pub­licly crit­i­cis­ing the Pres­i­dent.

“In a me­dia state­ment dat­ed Feb­ru­ary 19, 2024, the ho­n­ourable Op­po­si­tion Leader crit­i­cised our Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo and the new­ly ap­point­ed chair­man of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, ac­cus­ing them both of not show­ing per­son­al in­tegri­ty in re­la­tion to his ap­point­ment. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Gov­ern­ment want­ed a sub­servient and pas­sive In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion,” Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal ar­gued.

It was at this mo­ment she re­ceived her first cau­tion from the Sen­ate Pres­i­dent who in­formed Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal that the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent could not be used to in­flu­ence a de­bate.

How­ev­er, a few min­utes lat­er, Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal did this again, this time in ref­er­ence to for­mer Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes.

Again, she was cau­tioned by de Fre­itas.

“Mem­ber, just re­mem­ber, the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent is not to be used to in­flu­ence the de­bate in any way,” de Fre­itas re­mind­ed.

Re­word­ing her ar­gu­ment and quot­ing a Face­book post from Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor David Nakhid on Oc­to­ber 11, 2021, the Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor read, “an at­tack was made on a high of­fice hold­er in which that high of­fice hold­er was re­ferred to in that post as an ‘in­sipid jack***’,” Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal said, be­fore prompt­ly tak­ing her seat as this state­ment brought the Sen­ate Pres­i­dent to his legs.

An erup­tion of protests came from the op­po­si­tion bench which led to de Fre­itas sus­pend­ing the house for 15 min­utes.

On its re­sump­tion, the Sen­ate Pres­i­dent scold­ed the con­duct of the mem­bers of the house.

“It should be known by each and every one of you that the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the deco­rum of this cham­ber falls to the chair. I have in­di­cat­ed on many oc­ca­sions that I take this re­spon­si­bil­i­ty se­ri­ous,” de Fre­itas said, ad­dress­ing them.

He added, “I re­mind all sen­a­tors that these pro­ceed­ings are aired live to the cit­i­zens of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go who ex­pect a cer­tain lev­el of be­hav­iour in this cham­ber when we are con­duct­ing their busi­ness.”

He said what oc­curred pri­or to the sus­pen­sion would not hap­pen again.

Speak­ing di­rect­ly to Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal, de Fre­itas said, “Sen­a­tor, that type of lan­guage whether quot­ed or oth­er­wise, is not to be used.”

Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal pro­ceed­ed to apol­o­gise.

Al­so con­tribut­ing to the de­bate was In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Suni­ty Ma­haraj who said she be­lieved the re­al is­sue was the ef­fec­tive­ness of in­de­pen­dent en­ti­ties rather than their in­su­la­tion from po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence.

“We have to ad­dress the prob­lem of the qual­i­ty of our democ­ra­cy, and the ef­fec­tive­ness of our in­sti­tu­tions. It is not enough to say we have all these in­sti­tu­tions; it sounds good. But are they work­ing? Or is the log­jam there cre­at­ing more and more prob­lems that the gov­ern­ment, no mat­ter which gov­ern­ment, they get to the point of be­ing so stymied and can­not car­ry through their agen­da, they have to find al­ter­na­tive means and short cir­cuit the process and then they end up be­fore the court,” Ma­haraj as­sert­ed.