Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

May­ors will re­main in of­fice for the three-month pe­ri­od lead­ing up to Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion - and Gov­ern­ment has changed a con­tro­ver­sial clause that the Op­po­si­tion ob­ject­ed to in leg­is­la­tion to val­i­date coun­cil­lors’ ac­tions af­ter De­cem­ber 2022.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour con­firmed the sit­u­a­tion and an­nounced the change in pi­lot­ing yes­ter­day’s Sen­ate de­bate on the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions (Ex­ten­sion of Terms of Of­fice and Val­i­da­tion) Bill, 2023.

The bill be­came nec­es­sary af­ter the Privy Coun­cil’s May 18 judg­ment that deemed un­law­ful, Gov­ern­ment’s ex­ten­sion of the LG term be­yond De­cem­ber 2, 2022.

The bill pro­vides for the ex­ten­sion un­til May 18, 2023, of the terms of of­fice of coun­cil­lors and al­der­men whose terms ex­pired on De­cem­ber 2, 2022. It pro­vides for LG elec­tions with­in three months of May 18, and val­i­dates the func­tions and ac­tions of coun­cil­lors and al­der­men be­tween De­cem­ber 2, 2022, and May 18, 2023.

The bill was passed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on Mon­day via sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty vote and in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day.

Say­ing Gov­ern­ment un­equiv­o­cal­ly ac­cepts the Privy Coun­cil rul­ing, Ar­mour added, “Mis­chief mak­ers would seek to sug­gest oth­er­wise, but I’m con­fi­dent that the dis­cern­ing in­tel­li­gent pop­u­la­tion will not al­low mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions to cloud the clar­i­ty of the Gov­ern­ment’s in­ten­tion.”

Ar­mour said the bill’s pro­vi­sions al­low for may­ors to re­main in of­fice over the pe­ri­od May 18, 2024 to the elec­tion date. He al­so an­nounced a change to clause five of the bill, on val­i­da­tion.

This clause had stat­ed where the coun­cil­lors and al­der­men, un­der sec­tion three, ex­er­cised the func­tions of coun­cil­lors and al­der­men be­tween De­cem­ber 2, 2022, and May 18, 2023, “and there­after ex­er­cised the func­tions of coun­cil­lors and al­der­men up un­til the com­mence­ment of this Act,” the ex­er­cise of those func­tions and all acts or things done pur­suant there­to, shall be deemed to have been as valid and ef­fec­tu­al as if the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions Act em­pow­ered them to ex­er­cise the func­tions.

When the bill was de­bat­ed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on Mon­day, Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar, not­ing the “there­after,” had ques­tioned how Par­lia­ment could val­i­date coun­cil­lors/al­der­men’s fu­ture ac­tions and called for the clause to be delet­ed. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was very un­com­fort­able with the clause and didn’t trust the Gov­ern­ment. But Gov­ern­ment didn’t change the clause.

Yes­ter­day in the Sen­ate, how­ev­er, Ar­mour said he would move an amend­ment to clause five.

“The amend­ment which I will move is that I have re­flect­ed since Mon­day on con­tri­bu­tions that have been made to clause five and I have ben­e­fit­ted from a very il­lu­mi­nat­ing con­ver­sa­tion which I’ve had with In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Dr Paul Richards which I ac­knowl­edged pub­licly,” he said.

“The ra­tio­nale of clause five will be in due course to val­i­date the func­tions and all acts or things done by coun­cil­lors and al­der­men for the pe­ri­od be­tween De­cem­ber 2, 2022 to 18 May 2023.”

When In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira sought clar­i­fi­ca­tion, Ar­mour con­firmed the amend­ment will in­volve dele­tion of the words “And there­after ex­er­cised the func­tions of coun­cil­lors and al­der­men up un­til the com­mence­ment of this act.”

Ar­mour al­so ad­dressed In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Dr Var­ma Deyals­ingh’s re­cent­ly ex­pressed con­cern of be­ing trou­bled that Sen­a­tors - in de­bate on the LG re­form bill- some­how par­tic­i­pat­ed in tak­ing away vot­ers’ rights.

Ar­mour re­as­sured Deyals­ingh there’s no rea­son for his con­cerns.

He said, “This Sen­ate can stand proud and hold its head high for that which it did in pass­ing the 2020 Act in­to law and the sub­se­quent procla­ma­tion which brought sec­tions 11(4) and 12(5) in­to force in No­vem­ber 2022.”

He added, “Noth­ing passed by this Sen­ate vi­o­lat­ed the Con­sti­tu­tion of T&T and took away any con­sti­tu­tion­al right to vote. All five Privy Coun­cil judges were unan­i­mous on this, as were the three Court of Ap­peal judges.”