Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day called on the Gov­ern­ment to with­draw the Non-Prof­it Or­gan­i­sa­tions (NPO) Bill, say­ing cer­tain claus­es in the bill are dra­con­ian, dan­ger­ous and dic­ta­to­r­i­al and could in­fringe on the rights of many groups in the coun­try.

If the Gov­ern­ment fails to go back to the draw­ing board with the bill, Per­sad-Bisses­sar threat­ened to take them to court if it is passed by a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the bill, which seeks to pro­vide the reg­is­tra­tion, es­tab­lish­ment and main­te­nance and oblig­a­tions of NPOs, came like a “thief in the night” and had ill-in­ten­tions.

Speak­ing dur­ing yes­ter­day’s Par­lia­ment sit­ting, she said en­vi­ron­men­tal group Fish­er­men and Friends of the Sea stat­ed that the pro­posed law, if abused, can be used to per­se­cute in­de­pen­dent civ­il so­ci­ety groups who stand in de­fence of pub­lic rights.

While the ex­pressed in­ten­tion of the bill may cross the con­sti­tu­tion­al hur­dle, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said it does not strike a “prop­er bal­ance,” as cer­tain claus­es seek to in­ter­fere with the rights to prop­er­ty of NPO bod­ies, which was a vi­o­la­tion.

“There are claus­es in the bill that are clear­ly dis­pro­por­tion­ate and the pow­ers pro­pose to give sanc­tions which are ar­bi­trary and not prop­er­ly jus­ti­fied in law or log­ic,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

She said At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi had in­di­cat­ed that there were 104,000 com­pa­nies, of which 9,000 fell un­der NPOs which had been reg­is­tered.

She ques­tioned why the re­main­ing 100,000 pri­vate com­pa­nies were left un­touched.

“There are peo­ple with many com­pa­nies right here get­ting $23 mil­lion con­tracts and more mil­lion-dol­lar con­tracts. That is where the mon­ey is. Fol­low the mon­ey. But you are com­ing af­ter the small man, the lit­tle man, as your first hit,” she said.

“The sport­ing groups, the vil­lage coun­cil, the pep­per roti and bake and shark pro­duc­er. I am not say­ing you must not come. That is your first hit, man, and you have not con­sult­ed with them.”

This move, she said, was a vi­o­la­tion of their rights and many of the claus­es out­lined were “dic­ta­to­r­i­al, dan­ger­ous and dra­con­ian.”

The Siparia MP iden­ti­fied Clause 4, which seeks to make the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit (FIU)” the reg­u­la­tor” of NPOs.

“It’s clear that the FIU can­not be the reg­u­la­tor of non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tions. It would be a con­flict of in­ter­est. You can­not have a reg­u­la­to­ry body which is al­so an in­ves­ti­ga­to­ry body with pow­ers un­der the oth­er as­pect of the crim­i­nal law.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so found Clause 18, which deals with the sur­ren­der­ing of reg­is­tra­tion and 21 on the dis­tri­b­u­tion of prop­er­ty to be dra­con­ian.

“If you sur­ren­der (your prop­er­ty) they are go­ing to give it to some­body else.”

She asked why it was nec­es­sary to give up your prop­er­ty if you would have bro­ken no law.

“You want to tell me what I must do with my prop­er­ty? So that makes it more ar­bi­trary and dis­pro­por­tion­ate.”

She in­sist­ed the aim of the bill was not to mon­i­tor and reg­u­late NPOs.

“It is puni­tive. There­fore, in its present form we can­not sup­port this leg­is­la­tion,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, as she called on the Gov­ern­ment to with­draw the bill and go back to the draw­ing board.

“Do your con­sul­ta­tions. Go back and look at the UK mod­el. Let good sense pre­vail.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was sure Gov­ern­ment would pass the bill with a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty.

“Should you suc­ceed with pass­ing it, as you will be be­cause you have your own built-in ma­jor­i­ty, we will chal­lenge it in the courts,” she vowed, as Al-Rawi burst out laugh­ing in the Cham­ber.