Gail Alexan­der

An at­tempt by UNC MP Dr Tim Gopeesingh to haul Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning be­fore the Par­lia­ment's Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee failed yes­ter­day since Gopeesingh had act­ed on the is­sue too late.

House Speak­er Baren­dra Sinanan not­ed the sit­u­a­tion dur­ing yes­ter­day's Low­er House ses­sion. He said Gopeesingh had brought up the is­sue con­cern­ing Man­ning re­gard­ing a mat­ter of the Sep­tem­ber 11 sit­ting. How­ev­er, Sinanan said the House sat twice af­ter that on Sep­tem­ber 14 and 16. Sinanan said such ap­pli­ca­tions must sat­is­fy three cri­te­ria.

"In this case it is not so," he added. He said mat­ters of priv­i­lege must be raised at the first op­por­tu­ni­ty. "That means the next sit­ting. If it is not raised at the next sit­ting, in­vari­ably the Speak­er will not al­low it– which I'm not al­low­ing in this in­stance," he said on Gopeesingh's ap­pli­ca­tion. Sinanan al­so said mat­ters of priv­i­lege must not be triv­ial or tech­ni­cal which he said had al­so ap­plied in the present case. Sinanan added, "Re­gret­tably Dr Gopeesingh, you are very much out of time."