The fol­low­ing is the rul­ing by the Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Bridgid An­nisette-George MP, on Sec­tion 36 of the Con­sti­tu­tion.

RUL­ING OF THE SPEAK­ER OF THE HOUSE ON SEC­TION 36 OF THE CON­STI­TU­TION

1. Ho­n­ourable Mem­bers, it was not my in­ten­tion to ad­dress you at the be­gin­ning of to­day’s pro­ceed­ings. How­ev­er, I am in re­ceipt of cor­re­spon­dence un­der the hand of the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion and Mem­ber for Siparia, the Hon. Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, SC, MP, rais­ing sev­er­al is­sues which I am com­pelled to ad­dress.

2. It is my hope that by ad­dress­ing Ho­n­ourable Mem­bers col­lec­tive­ly, any and all mis­ap­pre­hen­sions, mis­con­cep­tions and mis­con­struc­tions will be dis­pelled.

3. The Leader of the Op­po­si­tion has raised, by my as­sess­ment, three mat­ters; first­ly, whether a de­bate en­sues when a mo­tion pur­suant to sec­tion 36 of the Con­sti­tu­tion is pro­posed, and if so, at what stage? and by which body? sec­ond­ly, an as­ser­tion that guide­lines is­sued by the Speak­er, in re­la­tion to these pro­ceed­ings, are ul­tra vires the Con­sti­tu­tion and third­ly, ac­cu­sa­tions of bias lev­elled against this Chair and a Mem­ber of the oth­er place.

4. By now, we are all fa­mil­iar with the pro­vi­sions of sec­tion 36 of the Con­sti­tu­tion. It is, af­ter all, the rea­son we are as­sem­bled. How­ev­er, I shall take this op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­mind Ho­n­ourable Mem­bers of its pro­vi­sions:

36. (1) The Pres­i­dent shall be re­moved from of­fice where—

(a) a mo­tion that his re­moval from of­fice should be in­ves­ti­gat­ed by a tri­bunal is pro­posed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives;

(b) the mo­tion states with full par­tic­u­lars the grounds on which his re­moval from of­fice is pro­posed, and is signed by not less than one-third of the to­tal mem­ber­ship of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives;

(c) the mo­tion is adopt­ed by the vote of not less than two-thirds of the to­tal mem­ber­ship of the Sen­ate and the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives as­sem­bled to­geth­er;

(d) a tri­bunal con­sist­ing of the Chief Jus­tice and four oth­er Judges ap­point­ed by him, be­ing as far as prac­ti­ca­ble the most se­nior Judges, in­ves­ti­gate the com­plaint and re­port on the facts to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives;

(e) the Sen­ate and the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives as­sem­bled to­geth­er on the sum­mons of the Speak­er con­sid­er the re­port and by res­o­lu­tion sup­port­ed by the votes of not less than two-thirds of the to­tal mem­ber­ship of the Sen­ate and the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives as­sem­bled to­geth­er de­clare that he shall be re­moved from of­fice.”

5. I shall now treat with the three mat­ters re­ferred to ear­li­er, in turn:

Whether a de­bate en­sues when a mo­tion pur­suant to sec­tion 36 of the Con­sti­tu­tion is pro­posed and if so, at what stage, and by which body.

6. A mo­tion is de­fined as a pro­pos­al brought be­fore the House for a de­ci­sion. In gen­er­al, mo­tions are in­deed de­bat­able and can be amend­ed. How­ev­er, there are sev­er­al ex­cep­tions and I am cer­tain that the more sea­soned Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, in­clud­ing the Ho­n­ourable Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, are fa­mil­iar with them.

7. By way of ex­am­ple, a priv­i­lege mo­tion does not trig­ger a de­bate. It is a pro­pos­al that an in­ves­ti­ga­tion is war­rant­ed. It is pure­ly pro­ce­dur­al. A priv­i­lege mo­tion is nev­er de­bat­ed be­cause it is an orig­i­nat­ing pro­ce­dur­al mo­tion, it is sim­ply a com­plaint ac­com­pa­nied by grounds up­on which the com­plaint is based. If in the opin­ion of the Speak­er the grounds have es­tab­lished a pri­ma fa­cie case, then the priv­i­lege mo­tion is, with­out more, re­ferred to the rel­e­vant Com­mit­tee for in­ves­ti­ga­tion and re­port. It is on­ly sub­se­quent to the re­port of the in­ves­ti­gat­ing Com­mit­tee to the House that a de­bate takes place on the Com­mit­tee’s find­ings and rec­om­men­da­tions.

8. There­fore, it is well-es­tab­lished par­lia­men­tary prac­tice and pro­ce­dure that the term “mo­tion” does not al­ways mean that a de­bate is au­to­mat­i­cal­ly ini­ti­at­ed.

9. The de­ter­mi­na­tion of whether or not a mo­tion pro­posed un­der sec­tion 36(1)(a) is de­bat­able can eas­i­ly be gleaned up­on a care­ful ex­am­i­na­tion of the Con­sti­tu­tion. We all know that the first rule of statu­to­ry in­ter­pre­ta­tion is the lit­er­al ap­proach and the lan­guage used by the framers is very in­struc­tive.

10. It is clear, based on the lan­guage used in sec­tion 36, that this process has four dis­tinct pro­ce­dur­al steps: one, the signed mo­tion is pro­posed, two, the mo­tion must then be adopt­ed, three, a tri­bunal will in­ves­ti­gate and four, the re­port of this tri­bunal is con­sid­ered.

11. Ho­n­ourable Mem­bers, I have been ad­vised, and it is al­so my con­sid­ered view, that the very first stage of this process, that is, the pro­pos­al of the mo­tion, is pure­ly orig­i­nat­ing and pro­ce­dur­al. The mo­tion with,

a. full par­tic­u­lars; and

b. the re­quired sig­na­tures ap­pend­ed,

is pro­posed to the House. This is done by the pro­pos­er read­ing the mo­tion in­to the records of the House, sim­i­lar to the read­ing of a priv­i­lege mo­tion.

12. At this stage, the Con­sti­tu­tion does not pro­vide, ex­press­ly or by im­pli­ca­tion, for a de­bate.

13. There­after, the mo­tion pro­gress­es through the oth­er three stages. The process as set out in the Con­sti­tu­tion is pel­lu­cid. The next stage is the vote to adopt the mo­tion as pro­posed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. This con­veys the un­equiv­o­cal in­ten­tion of the framers of the Con­sti­tu­tion.

14. To seek to com­pare this mo­tion with a stand­ing or­der 41 mo­tion is mis­guid­ed. A stand­ing or­der 41 mo­tion, which ini­ti­ates a de­bate, is de­cid­ed by a ma­jor­i­ty vote in the House. The pro­ce­dur­al mo­tion in sec­tion 36 of the Con­sti­tu­tion re­quires on­ly the sig­na­tures of at least one-third of the mem­ber­ship of the House to ad­vance to the next stage.

15. Sure­ly, the Hon. Leader of the Op­po­si­tion is not sug­gest­ing that the Speak­er of the House in­sert words in­to the Con­sti­tu­tion that are not there.

16. The Leader of the Op­po­si­tion’s let­ter al­so seems to sug­gest that the de­bate she de­sires should take place in the Elec­toral Col­lege. In­deed, the Mem­ber as­sert­ed that “it is ab­surd to ask the Mem­bers of the House and Sen­ate to vote on such an im­por­tant mo­tion with­out a de­bate.”

17. How­ev­er, it is strik­ing­ly odd that the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion would re­fer to a clear pro­vi­sion of the Con­sti­tu­tion as “ab­surd”. All of us as­sem­bled here swore an Oath to up­hold the Con­sti­tu­tion, the very Con­sti­tu­tion that the Mem­ber is now la­bel­ing as ab­surd be­cause it is at vari­ance with her mis­guid­ed opin­ion.

18. The Ho­n­ourable Leader of the Op­po­si­tion is cer­tain­ly free to hold such a view, but this po­si­tion is con­trary to the pro­vi­sions of the Con­sti­tu­tion.

●  Sec­tion 36 (1)(c) does not con­tem­plate a de­bate by the Elec­toral Col­lege at this stage.

19. Sec­tion 36(1)(b) iden­ti­fies the mo­tion as a doc­u­ment con­tain­ing the full par­tic­u­lars and the grounds on which the com­plaint is based to­geth­er with the req­ui­site sig­na­tures. It was for the Ho­n­ourable Leader of the Op­po­si­tion to en­sure that her doc­u­ment con­tained suf­fi­cient de­tails, that is to say full par­tic­u­lars, to as­sist the Elec­toral Col­lege in de­ter­min­ing whether her com­plaint war­rants an in­ves­ti­ga­tion by a tri­bunal.

20. In­ter­est­ing­ly, Ho­n­ourable Mem­bers, the Con­sti­tu­tion pro­vides that up­on re­ceipt of the re­port of the tri­bunal head­ed by the Chief Jus­tice, the Elec­toral Col­lege, on the sum­mons of the Speak­er, con­sid­ers the re­port. Ho­n­ourable Mem­bers are asked to note the clear dis­tinc­tion in the word­ing of sec­tion 36(1)(e) of the Con­sti­tu­tion. It is at this stage that the Con­sti­tu­tion pro­vides for a de­bate to take place by the Elec­toral Col­lege.

21. Ad­mit­ted­ly, a mo­tion to trig­ger the re­moval of a Pres­i­dent is rarely in­voked. In fact, the framers of the Con­sti­tu­tion in­tend­ed that when the pro­vi­sion is in­voked, the com­plaint and the par­tic­u­lars must be suf­fi­cient­ly so suf­fi­cient­ly weighty that it would be like­ly to suc­ceed.

22. This is ev­i­dent from para­graph 162 and 163 of the Wood­ing Com­mis­sion. Para­graph 162 states as fol­lows:

“We thought it nec­es­sary to make pro­vi­sion for re­mov­ing the Pres­i­dent from of­fice al­though it is ex­pect­ed that this even­tu­al­i­ty will nev­er arise.

It con­tin­ues at para­graph 163:

“The rec­om­mend­ed pro­ce­dure for his re­moval as set out in the at­tached draft con­sti­tu­tion is de­signed ba­si­cal­ly to make it un­like­ly that the pro­ce­dure will be set in mo­tion un­less there is near cer­tain­ty of the like­li­hood of its suc­ceed­ing.”

●  Guide­lines is­sued in re­la­tion to these pro­ceed­ings are ul­tra vires

23. I trust that all Ho­n­ourable Mem­bers now ap­pre­ci­ate that as Speak­er of the House, I am heav­i­ly guid­ed by the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go for the pur­pos­es of this pro­ce­dure.

24. It is the Con­sti­tu­tion it­self that au­tho­ris­es the mak­ing of guide­lines by the per­son who sits in this Chair. In this re­gard, Mem­bers are di­rect­ed to reg­u­la­tions 3 and 23 of the Elec­toral Col­lege Reg­u­la­tions, which are made pur­suant to sec­tion 28(4) of the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

25. I as­sure Mem­bers that, in this mat­ter, quite ex­ten­sive and sub­stan­tial re­search has been un­der­tak­en by the very ex­perts who have com­pe­tent­ly guid­ed the Chair long be­fore I be­came its oc­cu­pant. These ex­perts are in fact the prin­ci­pal ad­vis­ers on prac­tice and pro­ce­dure in this part of the Com­mon­wealth.

26. Their re­search was quite help­ful to me and they di­rect­ed me to the Con­sti­tu­tions of Nige­ria, Kenya and sev­er­al oth­er Com­mon­wealth ju­ris­dic­tions which uti­lize sim­i­lar con­sti­tu­tion­al lan­guage in re­la­tion to pro­vi­sions for the re­moval of a Pres­i­dent. This re­search, along with the pro­vi­sions of our Re­pub­li­can Con­sti­tu­tion formed the ba­sis of the Guide­lines for to­day’s pro­ceed­ings.

●  Ac­cu­sa­tions of bias

27. Ho­n­ourable Mem­bers, I must ex­press that I am as­tound­ed by the claims of bias made by the Ho­n­ourable Leader of the Op­po­si­tion and even fur­ther per­plexed by the fac­tors sub­mit­ted in sup­port of same.

28. I am of the opin­ion that these is­sues do not arise.

29. It is ab­surd to sug­gest that any or every per­son who has par­tic­i­pat­ed in process­es that are not the spe­cif­ic sub­ject of this mo­tion should be dis­qual­i­fied from par­tic­i­pat­ing in these pro­ceed­ings.

30. Many Ho­n­ourable Mem­bers here have sat in Cab­i­net, have held or cur­rent­ly hold Min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lios, have par­tic­i­pat­ed in de­bates, have asked ques­tions and filed mo­tions on is­sues which may be per­ceived as re­lat­ed (al­though ir­rel­e­vant) to this mat­ter.

31. The claim of the Ho­n­ourable Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, tak­en to its log­i­cal con­clu­sion, would sug­gest, that even the pro­pos­er and the Mem­bers who signed in sup­port may be per­ceived as bi­ased and should be dis­al­lowed from par­tic­i­pat­ing as well. NO right think­ing per­son will see the re­motest con­nec­tion be­tween that 2009 Or­der and the sub­ject mat­ter of the Mo­tion at hand.

32. The as­ser­tion is ab­solute­ly il­log­i­cal and I re­ject it out­right.

33. I am oblig­ed to re­sist the urg­ings of the Ho­n­ourable Leader of the Op­po­si­tion that I seek to in­flu­ence or ad­vise or con­vince any Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment to re­frain from par­tic­i­pat­ing in this process, as to do so would be a trav­es­ty of the very de­mo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples which the Mem­ber pur­ports to ad­vance.

34. To ac­qui­esce to any of the over­tures con­tained in the let­ter penned by the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, would, in my re­spect­ful opin­ion, amount to an af­front to the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

35. I can­not, and I will not as­sume up­on my­self, the pow­er to con­strue the words of the Con­sti­tu­tion in a way which is in­con­sis­tent with its clear in­ten­tion, sim­ply to ap­pease the com­pet­ing in­ter­ests of those in­volved.

Bridgid An­nisette-George, MP

Speak­er of the House

I so rule.

Oc­to­ber 21, 2021