Gail Alexan­der

Sev­er­al in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors have tak­en is­sue with fel­low Sen­a­tor Gail Mer­hair's view that in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors should not set out to thwart gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy. One has even de­scribed Mer­hair a 'novice' sen­a­tor. Mer­hair aired her po­si­tion on Wednes­day as she ex­plained her sup­port for Gov­ern­ment's bill to post­pone Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment polls. Votes by Mer­hair and In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor, Michael An­nisette, eased pas­sage of the bill which was stern­ly crit­i­cised by Op­po­si­tion and In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors who vot­ed against it.

Mer­hair, dur­ing de­bate, ex­plained her de­ci­sion to sup­port it, in­clud­ing her ini­tial de­ci­sion not to. How­ev­er, yes­ter­day Sen­a­tor Dana See­ta­hal said, "I have been an In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor for sev­en years, five years be­fore her and I have heard noth­ing of any prac­tice such as she seems to be al­lud­ing to be­cause the state­ment she made sounds like it is based on some con­vic­tion." She said, "How­ev­er I have heard those same state­ments from the mouth of a PNM sen­a­tor–that In­de­pen­dents should not set out to thwart the will of Gov­ern­ment. But that is clear­ly in­con­sis­tent with the role of an In­de­pen­dent mem­ber of Par­lia­ment. So I re­ject­ed it when it sug­gest­ed by PNM mouths or when sug­gest­ed by a novice sen­a­tor." See­ta­hal said she had ex­am­ined oth­er ju­ris­dic­tions and there is no such stan­dard.

"If in fact the busi­ness of an In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor is not to thwart Gov­ern­ment's will, then none of us might as well not be there be­cause we'll ei­ther vote with Gov­ern­ment or ab­stain. "In con­trast, I be­lieve we were se­lect­ed by the Head of State, who was elect­ed by Par­lia­ment and des­ig­nat­ed as out­stand­ing peo­ple in our field. We all have a lot to bring to the ta­ble when it comes to cast­ing good laws and of­ten you have to pro­tect the Gov­ern­ment from them­selves." In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Basharat Ali said: "I don't know where she (Mer­hair) got her views from or which ex­perts she con­sult­ed.

"She hasn't said who they are. But I don't think that rep­re­sents what In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors should be do­ing. So I don't agree with her." Ali added, "We've sworn to look af­ter the peo­ple's in­ter­ests. If I'm not hap­py with some­thing Gov­ern­ment does or brings from the Low­er House, I say so." In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Ramesh De­osaran said what he'd heard was "very trou­bling,"

De­osaran added, "It dis­turbs me very very much, I find that ridicu­lous and it is some­thing we'll have to re­solve in Par­lia­ment or some oth­er pub­lic fo­rum." In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor He­len Dray­ton who did not com­ment di­rect­ly on Mer­hair's state­ment, opined on the role of elect­ed and non-elect­ed mem­bers of Par­lia­ment. Dray­ton added, "Par­lia­ment is an as­sem­bly of cit­i­zens elect­ed or ap­point­ed to rep­re­sent the peo­ple with the pri­ma­ry func­tion of pass­ing laws for the "peace, or­der and good gov­ern­ment of T&T in ac­cor­dance with the Con­sti­tu­tion. "In or­der to pass laws mem­bers should de­bate the mer­its and prin­ci­ples of Bills which are ei­ther passed or not usu­al­ly by way of the priv­i­lege of vot­ing. "As an In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor, my vote on a Bill is not in­dica­tive of sup­port for, or lack of sup­port for the pol­i­cy of Gov­ern­ment; or in the case of the lat­ter, thwart­ing Gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy.

Sim­i­lar­ly, my vote is not in­dica­tive of ei­ther be­ing for or against the Op­po­si­tion or any mem­ber bring­ing the bill or mo­tion to Par­lia­ment. Dray­ton added, "As an In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor, I ex­er­cise that role in­de­pen­dent­ly af­ter re­search­ing thor­ough­ly the facts rel­e­vant to the mat­ter be­fore me, in­clud­ing as­sess­ment of per­ti­nent views and sub­mis­sions. I will lis­ten to the views of any­one who seeks my sup­port. I will analyse and eval­u­ate op­tions and fi­nal­ly, act based on what I feel is in the best in­ter­est of the peo­ple." UNC Sen­a­tor Wade Mark said, "Mer­hair's re­marks were quite in­ter­est­ing and high­ly con­tra­dic­to­ry. In­de­pen­dents Corinne Bap­tiste-McK­night and Michael An­nisette said Mer­hair's opin­ions were her own, they re­spect­ed her right to this and she was en­ti­tled to her opin­ion. How­ev­er, PNM Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert said, "Mer­hair's con­tri­bu­tion was out­stand­ing. It's time some­one spoke their mind and op­er­at­ed in­de­pen­dent­ly not on­ly of Gov­ern­ment but of every­one else."