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Thursday, May 8, 2025

Roodal ready to apologise, but will consult lawyers first

by

Gail Alexander
2142 days ago
20190626
Oropuche East MP Roodal Moonilal, left, speaks with Caroni East MP Dr Tim Goopeesingh during yesterday’s sitting of Parliament.

Oropuche East MP Roodal Moonilal, left, speaks with Caroni East MP Dr Tim Goopeesingh during yesterday’s sitting of Parliament.

NICOLE DRAYTON

While UNC MP Roodal Mooni­lal has in­di­cat­ed will­ing­ness to apol­o­gise for al­leged “threat­en­ing” words to­wards PNM MP Fitzger­ald Hinds, he says he has to con­sult his lawyers since he still has a case in court re­gard­ing the Par­lia­ment’s Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee han­dling of the mat­ter.

Mooni­lal in­di­cat­ed thi­son Wednes­day to Guardian Me­dia af­ter a ma­jor­i­ty Gov­ern­ment vote in Par­lia­ment adopt­ed a mo­tion call­ing on him to apol­o­gise to Par­lia­ment and Hinds at the next sit­ting of Par­lia­ment.

The mo­tion con­cerned the re­port of Par­lia­ment Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee which in­ves­ti­gat­ed the al­leged “threat­en­ing” words.

Mooni­lal was al­leged to have told Hinds on Oc­to­ber 10, 2018 - dur­ing Bud­get de­bate cross-talk - “That’s why Snake have lead for you” - in an ap­par­ent ref­er­ence to a Beetham Gar­dens res­i­dent who had pre­vi­ous­ly as­sault­ed the MP dur­ing flood­ing.

Gov­ern­ment took the mat­ter to the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee which de­lib­er­at­ed on it since then, al­though Mooni­lal sub­se­quent­ly in­sti­tut­ed le­gal ac­tion since he had is­sues with the Com­mit­tee’s com­po­si­tion and its op­er­a­tions. As a re­sult, he felt the Com­mit­tee’s re­port was flawed and should not have been de­bat­ed by Par­lia­ment. How­ev­er, the court on Wednes­day said Par­lia­ment could de­bate it.

Af­ter Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young pi­lot­ed the Com­mit­tee’s re­port and UNC MP Bar­ry Padarath and Mooni­lal replied, the vote was tak­en on the adopt­ing the re­port which called for Mooni­lal to apol­o­gise to Hinds and the Par­lia­ment at the next sit­ting.

It was amend­ed to al­low Mooni­lal to apol­o­gise by way of per­son­al ex­pla­na­tion to Par­lia­ment.

The mo­tion and re­port were both ap­proved by 21 Gov­ern­ment votes while the 12 UNC MPs present vot­ed against. UNC MPs Gan­ga Singh and Fuad Khan were ab­sent. Singh left be­fore the vote. The next sit­ting is ex­pect­ed to­mor­row.

On what he will do, Mooni­lal sub­se­quent­ly told Guardian Me­dia, “I have to con­sult my le­gal ad­vi­sors since there could be le­gal ram­i­fi­ca­tions since we still have a case in court.”

He said his com­ments pri­or to the vote, still stand.

“I have no dif­fi­cul­ty apol­o­gis­ing for any­thing said or done as I don’t mean any­one any per­son­al harm. But be­cause I’ve said the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee re­port was flawed, one has to con­sid­er if I apol­o­gise, I may val­i­date the re­port, so I’m hes­i­tant. If I ac­cept the re­port, that will in­di­cate that I’m val­i­dat­ing it and that’s se­ri­ous. So I might as well with­draw my court mat­ter - so I have to ex­am­ine the sit­u­a­tion.”

“My is­sue has nev­er been an apol­o­gy, I have no dif­fi­cul­ty apol­o­gis­ing - I may well do so. I’m quite pre­pared to. But the deep­er is­sue is the con­sti­tu­tion­al prin­ci­ple of the rule of law and whether the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee was prop­er­ly con­sti­tut­ed to do what they did. There are al­so the is­sues of fair­ness and nat­ur­al jus­tice,” he said.

He said he may have to apol­o­gise in the con­text of not ac­cept­ing the re­port as this may im­pede and im­pair his court case.

Next date for the sub­stan­tive as­pect of his case - on al­leged im­prop­er com­po­si­tion of the Com­mit­tee - is Ju­ly 8.

He said that since his le­gal ar­gu­ments had con­tend­ed that the Com­mit­tee’s re­port was flawed and giv­en the sub-ju­dice rule (that mat­ters in court could not be dis­put­ed else­where) he had queried whether the Com­mit­tee’s re­port should have been de­bat­ed.

Mooni­lal said al­though the court yes­ter­day stat­ed the Par­lia­ment could de­bate the re­port, he had not yet con­sult­ed his lawyers on the next step. He saw yes­ter­day’s court pro­nounce­ment as a “tem­po­rary set­back.”

“The sub­stan­tive is­sue can go all the way to the Privy Coun­cil,” Mooni­lal added.

Pi­lot­ing the Com­mit­tee’s re­port ear­li­er, Young, quot­ing the Con­sti­tu­tion not­ed Par­lia­ment dic­tates its own process­es, the court had lit­tle room re­gard­ing Par­lia­ment pro­ce­dure and the strict line be­tween Ju­di­cia­ry and Par­lia­ment should not be blurred. He saw Mooni­lal’s court ac­tion as an at­tack on Par­lia­ment and an un­con­sti­tu­tion­al in­ter­fer­ence with Par­lia­ment pro­ce­dures.

He not­ed Par­lia­ment’s reg­u­la­tions de­bar­ring abuse of free­dom of speech or threats of vi­o­lence against an­oth­er MP.

Young claimed Mooni­lal did not at­tend Com­mit­tee meet­ings de­spite be­ing in­vit­ed.

“He abused the court process in an ef­fort to es­cape be­ing called to ac­count to Par­lia­ment for his con­duct,” Young claimed.

He said af­ter the ev­i­dence was ex­am­ined it was felt Mooni­lal com­mit­ted con­tempt of Par­lia­ment and ut­tered “threat­en­ing” words. He said the term “lead” meant “bul­lets” and a per­son with the alias “Snake” was charged with at­tack­ing Hinds in Beetham.

Padarath, how­ev­er, said the Com­mit­tee’s op­er­a­tions were a “cha­rade, farce” and dis­ser­vice to Par­lia­ment. He claimed the com­mit­tee chair­man - the House Speak­er - said mem­bers were not there to de­ter­mine the truth so he felt the mat­ter was pre-de­ter­mined “from day one.” Padarath al­so claimed Mooni­lal did not refuse to at­tend meet­ings. He claimed PNM’s Colm Im­bert - in an­oth­er term - said the court was a good place to han­dle such is­sues.


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