There will be sev­en new In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors when the 13th Re­pub­li­can Par­lia­ment com­mences this af­ter­noon.

Guardian Me­dia ex­clu­sive­ly ob­tained a copy of the nine-mem­ber list of In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors hand­picked by this coun­try’s Head of State, Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo.

There are on­ly two re­turn­ing mem­bers from the last ses­sion of Par­lia­ment.

They are An­tho­ny Vieira, SC, and De­oroop Temal.

The oth­er sev­en sen­a­tors are Dr Mar­lene Attzs, Michael Si­mon Vic­tor de la Bastide, SC, Can­dice Jones-Sim­mons, Fran­cis S Lewis, Dr De­sirée Mur­ray, Court­ney Arthur Mc Nish and Ali­cia Pauline Lalite-Et­tiene.

Leav­ing the Up­per House would there­fore be Dr Paul Richards who has served in the role since Sep­tem­ber 23, 2015.

Ac­com­pa­ny­ing him will be Suni­ty Ma­haraj, Pro­fes­sor Ger­ard Hutchin­son, Dr Shara Patasar, Helon Fran­cis, Dr Maria Dil­lon Re­my and Hazel Thomp­son-Ahye.

With re­spect to the new faces, Dr Attzs is a De­vel­op­ment Econ­o­mist, who has served as Lec­tur­er, Head of the De­part­ment of Eco­nom­ics, and Deputy Dean of the Fac­ul­ty of So­cial Sci­ences at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI). She was al­so a found­ing mem­ber of the Sus­tain­able Eco­nom­ic De­vel­op­ment Unit, a spe­cialised re­search unit in the De­part­ment of Eco­nom­ics.

When con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Attzs would on­ly say, “I can con­firm that the mat­ter is cur­rent­ly un­der con­sid­er­a­tion. If HE (Her Ex­cel­len­cy) af­fords me the op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve as an In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor, I would glad­ly wel­come the chance to con­tin­ue speak­ing to, and for, the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go from an In­de­pen­dent per­spec­tive as I have done for my ca­reer.  Let’s see how things go in the next 24 hours.”

For­mer mem­ber of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC), Court­ney Mc­Nish when con­tact­ed, said “no com­ment.”

His res­ig­na­tion from the PolSC came in Sep­tem­ber 2021, on the first court hear­ing be­tween the PolSC and for­mer act­ing po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith as he sought to over­turn the com­mis­sion’s de­ci­sion to place him on sus­pen­sion pend­ing the out­come of an on­go­ing po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Then op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar called on the en­tire PolSC to re­sign, back then, as she be­lieved they were po­lit­i­cal­ly stained.

Mc­Nish re­signed a day af­ter her state­ment.

Michael Si­mon Vic­tor de la Bastide, SC, is the son of for­mer Chief Jus­tice and Caribbean Court of Jus­tice pres­i­dent Michael de la Bastide, who died in March 2024.

De la Bastide, who was con­ferred with silk on June 18, 2024, would have rep­re­sent­ed the Trinidad and To­ba­go Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al in 2024 dur­ing its le­gal bat­tle with the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion.

Can­dice Jones-Sim­mons is a for­mer ad­junct lec­tur­er and tu­tor at the Fac­ul­ty of Law, Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus, where she lec­tured the law of re­al prop­er­ty for over 10 years.

Dr De­sirée Mur­ray is an Oph­thal­mol­o­gist and Lec­tur­er in Oph­thal­mol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine.

Re­turn­ing Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira, SC, has served as an In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor since 2013. Mean­while, De­oroop Teemal has been in the Up­per House since 2018.

The nine In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors are at the dis­cre­tion of the Pres­i­dent from out­stand­ing per­sons from eco­nom­ic, so­cial or com­mu­ni­ty or­gan­i­sa­tions and oth­er ma­jor fields of en­deav­our.

The Sen­ate com­pris­es 31 mem­bers—16 on the ad­vice of the Prime Min­is­ter and six on the ad­vice of the Op­po­si­tion Leader.

The Gov­ern­ment still has three sen­a­tors to re­veal, while the Op­po­si­tion PNM has not yet an­nounced its com­po­si­tion.