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.