Has there been a change in the Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion on the Sedi­tion Act?

The ques­tion arose yes­ter­day af­ter an at­tor­ney in the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, Solange de Souza, asked Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre of T&T (NATUC) gen­er­al sec­re­tary Michael An­nisette to sub­mit on the union’s be­half, draft amend­ments to the con­tro­ver­sial Sedi­tion Act be­fore Sep­tem­ber 17.

Speak­ing af­ter­wards, An­nisette said he viewed the min­istry’s re­quests for amend­ments as con­tra­dic­to­ry in light of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Le­gal Af­fairs Fitzger­ald Hinds’ views that the old laws will not be thrown out.

“While the AG Of­fice is say­ing that (to sub­mit our com­ments), we have a con­tra­dic­tion with what the Prime Min­is­ter, Hinds and Stu­art Young are say­ing. So what do you do about it?

“Is it a col­lec­tive ap­proach by Cab­i­net be­cause we would have had dif­fer­ent state­ments em­a­nat­ing? So there is a con­tin­u­ous con­tra­dic­tion of state­ments by the Gov­ern­ment. That is how we view it. What the test will be is if Cab­i­net will have a com­mon voice on this mat­ter. It is left to be seen.”

An­nisette plead­ed with Row­ley to let good sense pre­vail in the mat­ter.

“Let us sit down and dis­cuss this law like big peo­ple,” he said.

The re­quest from the AG’s Of­fice was put for­ward yes­ter­day when An­nisette and a team from NATUC went to the AG’s Port-of-Spain of­fice to hand-de­liv­er a let­ter to At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi. But the AG is out of the coun­try and De Souza ac­cept­ed the let­ter on his be­half.

“In our con­ver­sa­tion with se­nior le­gal of­fi­cer Solange De Souza, there was an agree­ment that we would look at leg­is­la­tion, more par­tic­u­lar­ly this leg­is­la­tion and send our com­ments for the amend­ments or the re­peal, as the case may be, for the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to take a look at,” An­nisette told the me­dia.

He said NATUC was ad­vised to sub­mit their amend­ed pro­pos­als no lat­er than Sep­tem­ber 17.

The de­bate over the re­peal of the Sedi­tion Act start­ed af­ter NATUC and Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke was ar­rest­ed and charged un­der the act last week for state­ments he made last No­vem­ber.

In the three-page let­ter, NATUC has raised con­cerns about the ar­cha­ic leg­is­la­tion and the charge brought against Duke.

The let­ter urged the AG to “ta­ble for Par­lia­men­tary de­bate at the very min­i­mum, the de­crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of the of­fence of sedi­tion or prefer­ably fol­low oth­er Com­mon­wealth na­tions by re­peal­ing this leg­is­la­tion al­to­geth­er.” It not­ed that the act, as draft­ed, has the po­ten­tial to ex­pose all trade union lead­ers to un­want­ed and un­war­rant­ed crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion.

An­nisette viewed the words ut­tered by Duke last No­vem­ber as nor­mal rhetoric of the trade union move­ment.

Joined by com­rades of the Trans­port and In­dus­tri­al Work­ers’ Union (TI­WU), Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) and the PSA, An­nisette called on all civ­il so­ci­ety groups, in­clud­ing the Me­dia As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T, who may view the act as a way to muz­zle dis­sent­ing voic­es, to stand up and to give their in­put on how the leg­is­la­tion can be amend­ed or re­pealed.

“When I go back to my of­fice I will be li­ais­ing with some of my trade union col­leagues and ob­vi­ous­ly, we will talk to some of our at­tor­neys to see how best we can re­struc­ture it,” An­nisette said.

He ex­plained that three at­tor­neys, among them Dou­glas Mendes and Nyree Al­fon­zo, have agreed to work with the trade union move­ment to chal­lenge the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the Sedi­tion Act.

Hinds: I know noth­ing of this

Con­tact­ed for com­ment on this lat­est de­vel­op­ment yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Fitzger­ald Hinds said he had no knowl­edge of what An­nisette claimed oc­curred yes­ter­day.

“I know noth­ing of what you speak, you just told me what they are say­ing and I just told you and I un­der­stand what you said, but I just told you I know noth­ing of what you speak.”

Asked if at­tor­ney De Souza was in­deed at­tached to his of­fice, Hinds said yes. But when asked why De Souza would tell the union body to sub­mit amend­ments by Sep­tem­ber 17 if that was not a di­rec­tive from the AG, he re­spond­ed, “I know noth­ing of what you speak.”

On the ques­tion of whether there has been any dis­cus­sion with­in the Gov­ern­ment about re­peal­ing the Sedi­tion Act, Hinds again said he knew noth­ing of this.

No let-up from UNC

Mean­while, there will be no let-up from the Op­po­si­tion on the con­tro­ver­sial act de­spite pub­lic crit­i­cisms from Gov­ern­ment quar­ters.

Yes­ter­day, Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar penned a let­ter to the Clerk of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives in­di­cat­ing her in­ten­tion to in­tro­duce a Pri­vate Mem­ber’s Bill: The Sedi­tion Re­peal Bill, 2019.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the bill will be in­tro­duced pur­suant to Stand­ing Or­der 60 of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. She ex­plained that the pur­pose of the Sedi­tion Re­peal Bill, 2019, is to re­peal the Sedi­tion Act, Chap. 11:04. Ac­cord­ing to Per­sad-Bisses­sar, the act, which came in­to force in April 1920, is in­im­i­cal to the tenets of a mod­ern con­sti­tu­tion­al democ­ra­cy.

She said, “To­day, near­ly a cen­tu­ry af­ter it was en­act­ed, this law has no place in a free and de­mo­c­ra­t­ic coun­try and there­fore, it should be re­pealed and com­plete­ly re­moved off the statute books. Free­dom of speech and ex­pres­sion are en­shrined and pro­tect­ed rights in our democ­ra­cy.”

She added, “The par­ty I lead, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress, will con­tin­ue to stand for all these rights af­ford­ed to all of us un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so not­ed that many mod­ern democ­ra­cies have abol­ished their sedi­tion laws.

“The Op­po­si­tion will con­tin­ue to do our du­ty to hold the Gov­ern­ment ac­count­able; to ask ques­tions and seek to pro­tect all pa­tri­ot­ic cit­i­zens from run­ning afoul of this ar­cha­ic law and an ever-in­creas­ing op­pres­sive Gov­ern­ment,” she said.

Asked about this de­vel­op­ment Hinds said she was free to do so.

“Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is a Par­lia­men­tar­i­an in Op­po­si­tion, where I sus­pect she will be for a very very long time un­til the UNC dis­pos­es of her and she is free to file any mo­tion, once it qual­i­fies, the speak­er will treat with it ac­cord­ing­ly.”