Shal­iza Has­sanali

Op­po­si­tion mem­bers pre­vailed on the Gov­ern­ment on Fri­day to sus­pend con­sid­er­a­tion of the Da­ta Pro­tec­tion Bill, claim­ing there were too many flaws. The sus­pen­sion came at com­mit­tee stage in Par­lia­ment, as both sides sought to amend the bill's claus­es which seek to pro­vide pro­tec­tion of in­di­vid­u­als' pri­va­cy.

Dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to the de­bate, Diego Mar­tin North East MP Colm Im­bert ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of copy­ing the bill from the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment and pre­sent­ing it as their own. "There is no dif­fer­ence with this (bill) and the leg­is­la­tion in 2009...This is a car­bon copy with a few changes," Im­bert said.

"They are pick­ing up leg­is­la­tion that has se­ri­ous flaws. All they change is a few words: a se­mi colon and a full stop. It is cut and paste." Im­bert said there were sev­er­al de­fi­cien­cies with the bill, among them lack of clear-cut poli­cies; fail­ure to con­sult with the pub­lic on da­ta pro­tec­tion; qual­i­fi­ca­tions out­lined for jobs not be­ing suf­fi­cient­ly spe­cif­ic, while dis­crim­i­nat­ing against some em­ploy­ees. "Don't push it to the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee...It went to the JSC with a lot of flaws which were ven­ti­lat­ed al­ready," Im­bert plead­ed. "What we re­al­ly have here are claus­es that raise red flags." While the bill was be­ing ad­dressed, Op­po­si­tion mem­bers be­gan iden­ti­fy­ing de­fi­cien­cies.

Im­bert in­ter­vened, ask­ing the Gov­ern­ment to re­turn on Wednes­day "to fix the bill," since it dis­crim­i­nat­ed against some gov­ern­ment work­ers, among them To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly staffers. Speak­ing ear­li­er, Point Fortin MP Paula Gopee-Scoon ex­pressed con­cern that the bill, that could make the Pres­i­dent sub­ject to di­vulging in­for­ma­tion in­to the cus­tody and con­trol of an In­for­ma­tion Com­mis­sion­er. She de­scribed the bill as leg­is­la­tion first brought for­ward by the PNM and said it was im­por­tant for the pro­tec­tion of pri­vate in­for­ma­tion but sub­se­quent­ly out­lined her queries re­gard­ing claus­es in the bill. She ques­tioned whether the Pres­i­dent or the Cab­i­net would be re­quired to be au­dit­ed by the In­for­ma­tion Com­mis­sion­er. Gopee-Scoon al­so sug­gest­ed an amend­ment that al­lowed the com­mis­sion­er to have all the pow­ers nec­es­sary to car­ry­ing out his du­ty if he is to be ef­fec­tive.

She high­light­ed a clause in the bill which stat­ed that the In­for­ma­tion Com­mis­sion­er could ex­er­cise his pow­er on­ly with the con­sent of the House Speak­er or the Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate and added that the com­mis­sion­er's hands would be tied with­out con­sent giv­en. "With­out con­sent from the Speak­er or the Sen­ate Pres­i­dent, there would be no re­course," she said. Gopee-Scoon rec­om­mend­ed that the bill be re-ex­am­ined, call­ing it bad leg­is­la­tion, and ex­pressed her de­sire that the bill be more ex­plic­it. She de­scribed the leg­is­la­tion brought for­ward as un­clear and com­pared it to a blank cheque, with de­tails to be filled in af­ter.

Laven­tille West MP Ni le­ung Hy­po­lite ex­pressed sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments, ask­ing the Gov­ern­ment to clean up the bill and "come back." Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar com­plied. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she did not want to dis­crim­i­nate against any­one, prompt­ing gov­ern­ment chief whip Dr Roodal Moon­lial to de­fer fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tion to Feb­ru­ary 11.