Gail Alexan­der

Hold it!Con­tro­ver­sial leg­is­la­tion to in­crease re­tire­ment ben­e­fits for Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans and re­tired judges will not be ap­proved un­til the is­sue is ful­ly ven­ti­lat­ed, in­clud­ing deep­er scruti­ny by a spe­cial par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee if nec­es­sary, says Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.The PM in­ter­vened in the is­sue yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing com­plaints from some quar­ters about the leg­is­la­tion which was ap­proved by Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment in the Par­lia­ment on June 13.

Then, Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley had spo­ken on the Op­po­si­tion's be­half sup­port­ing the bills.Sub­se­quent­ly, the Re­tir­ing Al­lowances (Leg­isla­tive Ser­vice) (Amend­ment) and the Judges' Salaries and Pen­sions (Amend­ment) Bills were ex­pect­ed to be de­bat­ed in the Up­per House yes­ter­day, seek­ing to ap­prove sig­nif­i­cant in­creas­es for judges and MPs.

No vote was re­quired on the bills since they are "mon­ey bills" which can­not be ve­toed by the Sen­ate. Over 60 MPs and 15 judges were ex­pect­ed to ben­e­fit from the pro­posed pen­sion plans.How­ev­er, there has been op­po­si­tion to the bills from for­mer In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Mar­tin Daly and for­mer pub­lic ser­vice head Regi­nald Du­mas, who tried to urge In­de­pen­dents and oth­er quar­ters not to sup­port the mea­sure.

Con­cerns were al­so trig­gered by the per­cep­tion that par­lia­men­tar­i­ans might earn as pen­sion more mon­ey than they ever earned while in Par­lia­ment.The Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion al­so re­port­ed­ly raised con­cerns that it had not been con­sult­ed about the leg­is­la­tion and met with Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona on Mon­day. SRC head Ed­ward Col­lier was un­avail­able for com­ment yes­ter­day.

Not­ing as­sort­ed con­cerns raised on the leg­is­la­tion yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in a state­ment, said: "It is rare that the Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion ever agree on any­thing. "The Judges Salaries and Pen­sions (Amend­ment) Bill, 2013 and the Re­tir­ing Al­lowances (Leg­isla­tive) Amend­ment Bill 2014 were passed in the House with the full sup­port of the Op­po­si­tion."The Re­tired Judges As­so­ci­a­tion has al­so come out in full sup­port of the said Bill, which im­pacts their rep­re­sen­ta­tive group.

"Notwith­stand­ing this lev­el of agree­ment, there have been strong ob­jec­tions in some quar­ters to the Bills."Con­sis­tent with my pol­i­cy of al­ways al­low­ing views to be ven­ti­lat­ed and de­ci­sions ar­rived at af­ter such due con­sid­er­a­tion, the Gov­ern­ment's cur­rent po­si­tion would be not to pro­ceed with ap­prov­ing the Bills un­til all per­spec­tives and opin­ions are ven­ti­lat­ed."She added: "The Sen­ate de­bate on the said Bills which com­mences to­day (yes­ter­day) will al­low for some of these per­spec­tives and opin­ions to be ven­ti­lat­ed.

"Fur­ther, the Gov­ern­ment ex­press­es its will­ing­ness to re­fer the mat­ter to a Sen­ate Se­lect Com­mit­tee for re­view should such a pro­ce­dure be agreed to by all par­ties in the Sen­ate de­bate."Yet fur­ther, the Gov­ern­ment ex­press­es its will­ing­ness to ac­cept and ad­here to the rec­om­men­da­tions made by the Sen­ate Se­lect Com­mit­tee. At the end of the day, the na­tion­al in­ter­est is what must be served."

The Sen­ate was to com­plete the Plan­ning Bill and Nurs­es and Mid­wives amend­ments be­fore start­ing the Re­tire­ment Ben­e­fit Bills last night, Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship (PP) Sen­ate leader Gan­ga Singh said dur­ing the Sen­ate's lunch break yes­ter­day.

AG gets le­gal opin­ions

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan al­so told re­porters he had sourced le­gal opin­ions from Se­nior Coun­sel Sir Fen­ton Ram­sa­hoye on the al­le­ga­tion of by­pass­ing the SRC and British Queen's Coun­sel Tim­o­thy Strak­er, of Gray's Inn on pen­sions for the ju­di­cia­ry, which Gov­ern­ment was pre­sent­ing in de­bate on the bills last night.

In the opin­ions, Ram­sa­hoye said in part: "The im­prove­ment of ben­e­fits payable to Judges on re­tire­ment is es­sen­tial­ly a mat­ter for the leg­is­la­ture which has the pow­er to tax and spend and which is aware of the chang­ing con­di­tions in the so­ci­ety."The leg­is­la­ture has a wide dis­cre­tion in deal­ing with this mat­ter, bear­ing in mind its re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to the peo­ple.

"The amend­ing leg­is­la­tion which is pro­posed is es­sen­tial­ly a mat­ter for the peace or­der and good gov­ern­ment of T&T by en­sur­ing that the Judges, who while in ser­vice have sup­port­ed the rule of law, should un­til death live in com­fort and dig­ni­ty."I'm of the opin­ion that there is no con­sti­tu­tion­al im­pro­pri­ety in the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion which Par­lia­ment can pass with­out the in­ter­ven­tion of the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion."

Strak­er's opin­ion stat­ed in part: "The ar­gu­ment that the cur­rent pro­pos­al is un­con­sti­tu­tion­al, un­der­mines the in­de­pen­dence of the ju­di­cia­ry or un­der­mines the Com­mis­sion is not sus­tain­able."Ram­lo­gan, in his com­ments on the bills last night, told the T&T Guardian that the SRC did not com­plain or ob­ject on pri­or is­sues with oth­er gov­ern­ments.

He cit­ed: "In 1980-1, the then Prime Min­is­ter (Er­ic Williams) re­fused to im­ple­ment the in­crease in salaries of judges as rec­om­mend­ed by the SRC. The PM then laid in Par­lia­ment leg­is­la­tion (by reg­u­la­tion) to give the judges a new al­lowance, the ju­di­cial con­tact al­lowance. He did not con­sult nor re­quire ap­proval from the SRC. The SRC nev­er com­plained.

"In 1988-89, the then PM (ANR Robin­son) in­di­cat­ed that the state could not in­crease the judges' salaries. He how­ev­er de­cid­ed to make the salaries "tax free" and did so by lay­ing the nec­es­sary reg­u­la­tion or leg­is­la­tion in Par­lia­ment. He did not con­sult the SRC nor seek its ap­proval. The SRC didn't ob­ject."Ram­lo­gan added: "It seems ob­vi­ous the SRC can­not fet­ter the leg­is­la­ture in its law -mak­ing func­tion.

"The pur­pose of the Judges Pen­sions Amend­ment Bill is to amend the ex­ist­ing act to change the method of cal­cu­lat­ing a judge's pen­sion by in­clud­ing cer­tain al­lowances. "If that be­comes law, then the SRC will have the ju­ris­dic­tion to de­ter­mine the salary and those al­lowances un­der its pow­ers in the Con­sti­tu­tion."To say the SRC can stop the leg­is­la­ture amend­ing a law to change the method of cal­cu­lat­ing pen­sions is to fet­ter the leg­is­la­ture's pow­ers of mak­ing law.

"The sit­ting judges didn't ap­proach Gov­ern­ment to change the Pen­sion Act. The re­tired judges were the ones who did. The SRC ac­knowl­edges it can­not say whether it has ju­ris­dic­tion over re­tired judges."They do not, as they are no longer 'ju­di­cial of­fi­cers,' or pub­lic of­fi­cers, or per­sons hold­ing of­fices un­der the SRC's ju­ris­dic­tion.

PN­Mites up­set too

The Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment's move to ap­prove the in­creas­es has not sat well with­in some PNM quar­ters.PNM ac­tivist (PNM Abroad blog) Pearce Robin­son yes­ter­day said Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Colm Im­bert's moves – and that of Gov­ern­ment al­so – lacked judg­ment in seek­ing "mas­sive" pen­sion in­creas­es via the leg­is­la­tion.

Robin­son made the com­ment yes­ter­day in re­ply to ques­tions on the moves by the PNM MPs – and Gov­ern­ment – as he stood out­side Par­lia­ment try­ing to per­suade sen­a­tors not to ap­prove the in­creas­es.He said he spoke to each sen­a­tor as they ar­rived and at least one In­de­pen­dent (name called) as­sured him they would not sanc­tion the bills.Robin­son said he felt nei­ther the PNM nor the Gov­ern­ment should have sup­port­ed the bills. He said if any­thing, in­creas­es should al­so be grant­ed to pub­lic ser­vants across the board.

Asked if he would take steps with­in the par­ty, such as write to the PNM, on the is­sue, Robin­son said he would do what­ev­er was nec­es­sary.PNM Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi, who spoke to Robin­son, didn't want to be quot­ed on his re­spons­es to Robin­son.Asked to com­ment on the in­crease is­sue, Al-Rawi de­clined, say­ing PNM's Camille Robin­son-Reg­is would be speak­ing about the mat­ter in de­bate on the bills.

PNM sources told the T&T Guardian two weeks ago that the par­ty's cau­cus dis­cus­sions on the is­sue – be­fore the bills were de­bat­ed in the Low­er House – saw a unan­i­mous PNM stance to sup­port the bills.Yes­ter­day, Im­bert did not an­swer ini­tial calls on whether the Op­po­si­tion had any sec­ond thoughts af­ter pub­lic out­cry on their award­ing them­selves "mas­sive" pen­sion in­creas­es and by­pass­ing the SRC. Lat­er in the af­ter­noon, Im­bert asked the T&T Guardian to "kind­ly stop" call­ing and hung up.

The Op­po­si­tion of­fice re­ferred ques­tions for Row­ley on the is­sue to Ar­lene Go­er­ing-George, who was not there. Bal­isi­er House of­fi­cials lat­er ex­plained that Row­ley had been in Ja­maica and was due back last night. They re­ferred queries to Im­bert.