Gail Alexan­der

Es­tranged UNC MP Jack Warn­er was served with 25 charges by the na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive of the op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) as the par­ty in­voked the dis­ci­pli­nary process against him for al­leged breach­es of its con­sti­tu­tion.But, as he en­tered UNC's Rien­zi Com­plex in Cou­va for yes­ter­day's ex­ec­u­tive meet­ing, Warn­er threat­ened to take the en­tire UNC ex­ec­u­tive to court. "I will take them to the court of pub­lic opin­ion and the High Court if I have to," Warn­er said in re­sponse to the dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ceed­ings. He left the meet­ing which be­gan at 5 pm, 30 min­utes lat­er, com­plain­ing that the meet­ing of the UNC's na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive did not have a quo­rum. "There were on­ly sev­en mem­bers present out of 24...A quo­rum would have been 12 mem­bers," Warn­er said.

The sev­en mem­bers who at­tend­ed were po­lit­i­cal leader Bas­deo Pan­day, Op­po­si­tion chief whip Dr Hamza Rafeeq, for­mer Ch­agua­nas may­or Dr Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan, Ram­lochan Pan­choo, Sen­a­tor Adesh Nanan, MP Dr Tim Gopeesingh and Sen­a­tor Jen­nifer Ker­na­han-Jones. The UNC's no­tice to him on the is­sue was de­liv­ered on Ju­ly 27 to Warn­er by Ram­bachan, the for­mer Ch­agua­nas may­or who was oust­ed last week. Warn­er, in a long le­gal let­ter to the ex­ec­u­tive, said there was no ba­sis for the dis­ci­pli­nary process. He claimed it was an at­tempt by the par­ty to sus­pend him to pre­vent him from con­test­ing in­ter­nal elec­tions. Sig­nalling he might seek High Court re­dress against each ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber, Warn­er said that as far as he was con­cerned, the par­ty had no du­ly elect­ed ex­ec­u­tive and there­fore lacked pow­er of dis­ci­pline or sanc­tion over him.

Warn­er claimed that at the last con­gress, ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers pre­vent­ed some mem­bers from par­tic­i­pat­ing and the ap­point­ment of a dis­ci­pli­nary com­mit­tee by that con­gress was there­fore null and void. He claimed the mat­ters at is­sue "do not con­sti­tute a dis­ci­pli­nary charge hav­ing re­gard to the par­ty's con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­vi­sions." He said the ex­ec­u­tive's term had ex­pired, par­ty groups were not func­tion­ing and he was not al­lowed to func­tion as deputy leader. Warn­er claimed UNC's ex­ec­u­tive showed "favouritism" (sic) in favour of the leader against him. He called for specifics of al­le­ga­tions against him–in­clud­ing about re­cent par­lia­men­tary vot­ing and al­leged mon­ey mat­ters.