Richard Lord

Min­utes af­ter Speak­er Wade Mark de­clared va­cant the St Joseph seat held by MP Her­bert Vol­ney, the for­mer jus­tice min­is­ter said the gov­ern­ment will have a high price to pay as he em­barks on a le­gal chal­lenge to the de­vel­op­ment.Mark's rul­ing was made af­ter the pre­sen­ta­tion of yes­ter­day's $61 bil­lion bud­get.Af­ter giv­ing the ba­sis for his de­ci­sion Mark said: "I here­by de­clare that Mr Her­bert Vol­ney, MP, the Mem­ber for St Joseph, hav­ing been a can­di­date of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress and elect­ed to the House, has re­signed from the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress. Ac­cord­ing­ly, the Ho­n­ourable Mem­ber is re­quired un­der Sec­tion 49A(4) of the Con­sti­tu­tion to cease to per­form his func­tions as a mem­ber of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives with im­me­di­ate ef­fect."Mark said Vol­ney "shall be en­ti­tled to re­sume the per­for­mance of such func­tions on­ly if and when the le­gal pro­ceed­ings re­ferred to in sub­sec­tion 49A(3) are fi­nal­ly de­ter­mined with­in the mean­ing of that sub­sec­tion in favour of the Ho­n­ourable mem­ber.

Ear­li­er, Mark said he was in­formed of Vol­ney's res­ig­na­tion as a mem­ber of the UNC by him and sub­se­quent­ly by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who said un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion­Vol­ney's seat should be de­clared va­cant. As Mark gave his rul­ing Vol­ney got up from his seat, dis­missed Mark by wav­ing at him and walked out of the Cham­ber. ILP leader Jack Warn­er told him as he was about to leave,"This, too, shall pass.Vol­ney then told re­porters out­side the Cham­ber his at­tor­neys would ini­ti­ate le­gal ac­tion against the Speak­er's de­ci­sion with­in 14 days as was pro­vid­ed un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion.He said his at­tor­neys had been prepar­ing his le­gal chal­lenge over the past ten days, as he had no al­ter­na­tive but to re­sort to the court.He said: "The UNC has si­lenced me and si­lenced St Joseph in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and they would pay a heavy price for do­ing that."Speak­er Mark, he charged, "has act­ed as a judge, ju­ry and ex­e­cu­tion­er and has vi­o­lat­ed the pro­vi­sions of the Con­sti­tu­tion.""I was pre­pared for the worst," he said in the in­ter­view, say­ing he was scared for T&T as the coun­try was be­ing ruled from Rien­zi Com­plex.

Vol­ney said he was com­mit­ted to cor­rect­ing the Speak­er's de­ci­sion and had ex­pect­ed it to be made last Fri­day but the Speak­er was ab­sent.Asked if he was pre­pared for a pos­si­ble by-elec­tion, Vol­ney said he had giv­en con­sid­er­a­tion to re­sign­ing the seat, but not "at the tim­ing of the gov­ern­ment. It will be at the tim­ing of the MP, when my con­stituents tell me that we are ready in St Joseph to de­feat the UNC and the PNM."Vol­ney said in the in­ter­im, Warn­er, the Ch­agua­nas West MP, would rep­re­sent the St Joseph con­stituen­cy in Par­lia­ment.The Con­sti­tu­tion pro­vides that an MP who cross­es the floor should re­sign from Par­lia­ment or have his seat de­clared va­cant.In the past, this process has run in­to an ob­sta­cle. The Con­sti­tu­tion says the Speak­er must be no­ti­fied of the va­can­cy by the leader in the House of the par­ty the MP for­mer­ly be­longed to.It al­so says Par­lia­ment's stand­ing or­ders should pro­vide for the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of the par­ty leader. How­ev­er, no such stand­ing or­ders are in place.Mark ruled yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, that he had the pow­er to de­ter­mine who was the leader in the House of any par­ty, and it was a mat­ter of record that the prime min­is­ter was the leader of the UNC.He al­so point­ed out that Stand­ing Or­der 92 (un­der the rubric "Gen­er­al Au­thor­i­ty of the Speak­er") says "The Speak­er shall have pow­er to reg­u­late the con­duct of busi­ness in all mat­ters not pro­vid­ed for in these Stand­ing Or­ders" and by para­graph (2)... "The de­ci­sion in all cas­es for which these Stand­ing Or­ders do not pro­vide, shall lie with­in the dis­cre­tion of the Speak­er, and shall not be open to chal­lenge."