Gail Alexan­der

The Op­po­si­tion PNM will seek to have Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter and MP Her­bert Vol­ney "dragged" (sic) be­fore the Par­lia­ment's Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee un­less House Speak­er Wade Mark calls on Vol­ney to apol­o­gise and un­der­takes oth­er ac­tion, the PNM warned yes­ter­day.

Se­nior PNM MPs had hint­ed of the move to­wards the com­mit­tee on Sun­day af­ter the ju­di­cia­ry fired back on Vol­ney's re­cent con­tro­ver­sial state­ments against Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie. Yes­ter­day, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kei­th Row­ley is­sued a state­ment on PNM's be­half con­firm­ing the move. PNM's state­ment not­ed that the Par­lia­ment's Stand­ing Or­ders for­bid MPs from call­ing in­to ques­tion the con­duct of any mem­ber of the ju­di­cia­ry with­out plac­ing a spe­cif­ic mo­tion on the agen­da for that pur­pose. The PNM stat­ed that it was "whol­ly un­ac­cept­able" for Vol­ney to use Par­lia­ment and its cov­er of priv­i­lege to "slan­der the CJ un­der thin­ly-veiled al­le­ga­tions which are com­plete­ly with­out foun­da­tion and sub­stance." (sic)

The PNM claimed Vol­ney clear­ly brought "in­to the Par­lia­ment his record of dis­grace­ful con­duct which marked his tenure on the bench." The Op­po­si­tion called for the ju­di­cia­ry to present a writ­ten re­sponse to House Speak­er Wade Mark of the facts sur­round­ing Vol­ney's al­le­ga­tions. The PNM said the Speak­er was du­ty bound to read in­to the Par­lia­ment record the truth sur­round­ing the is­sues raised by Vol­ney, "hav­ing per­mit­ted Vol­ney the op­por­tu­ni­ty to cast as­per­sions on the con­duct of the Chief Jus­tice," the PNM claimed. It added: "Ad­di­tion­al­ly, if the de­cen­cy of the House is to be pre­served in the face of the vul­gar at­tack on the Chief Jus­tice and the ju­di­cia­ry, the Speak­er must call on Mr Vol­ney to stand in his place and of­fer an apol­o­gy from the Par­lia­ment floor–noth­ing else will suf­fice at this stage.

"Fail­ure to act along the lines of these rec­om­men­da­tions will re­sult in the Op­po­si­tion fil­ing a mo­tion to have Mr Vol­ney dragged be­fore the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives," the PNM warned. Mark yes­ter­day de­clined com­ment on the PNM's calls. He re­it­er­at­ed the po­si­tion he has tak­en on the ju­di­cia­ry's state­ment, that he would con­sid­er its sen­ti­ments and speak lat­er if nec­es­sary. The ju­di­cia­ry, com­ment­ing on Vol­ney's re­marks, had not­ed on Sun­day: "Out­side of a sub­stan­tive and spe­cif­ic mo­tion be­fore the Par­lia­ment, this will be in breach of the Stand­ing Or­ders, and al­so amounts to con­tempt and slan­der pun­ish­able by law. "It is re­gret­table, there­fore, that the Ho­n­ourable Speak­er who had a du­ty to re­strain Mr Vol­ney dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion be­fore the House, failed to do so, and the ju­di­cia­ry now has to seek and pur­sue chan­nels via which the pub­lic record could be cor­rect­ed," the ju­di­cia­ry's state­ment not­ed.

Par­lia­ment sources said Mark could not com­ment since he "did not want to get in­volved in the is­sue un­less some­thing was brought be­fore him." PNM MP Colm Im­bert, a mem­ber of the Par­lia­ment's Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee, said sanc­tions were var­ied for MPs found to be in breach of par­lia­men­tary priv­i­leges. Im­bert added: "Sanc­tions range from a mild form, such as a rep­ri­mand to sus­pen­sion for three months or sus­pen­sion for the re­main­der of a ses­sion. "I have heard of peo­ple be­ing ex­pelled in some Com­mon­wealth ju­ris­dic­tions for a gross breach of priv­i­leges, but I'm not aware that this has oc­curred in our ju­ris­dic­tion,"

House leader Roodal Mooni­lal was due to leave T&T with the PM and was un­avail­able yes­ter­day. Gov­ern­ment press sec­re­tary Garvin Nicholas said: "The PNM is free to file any mo­tion they wish in Par­lia­ment. It's their con­sti­tu­tion­al right. Any mo­tion will be dealt with on mer­it."