Gail Alexan­der

Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and UNC MPs walked out of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day af­ter Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George re­peat­ed­ly re­mind­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar to con­fine her con­tri­bu­tion to the amend­ment un­der de­bate and not re­hash ar­gu­ments al­ready made.

“This is to­tal–not democ­ra­cy!” Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­clared as she left with UNC MPs.  

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ex­it oc­curred dur­ing her con­tri­bu­tion to the de­bate on amend­ments made in the Sen­ate to the bill to ex­tend coun­cil­lors’ terms and val­i­date their ac­tions af­ter De­cem­ber 2022.

It was passed in the  House last week when Per­sad-Bisses­sar called for the dele­tion of clause five. In the Sen­ate, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour amend­ed the clause but did not delete it.

Yes­ter­day, Ar­mour pre­sent­ed the brief amend­ments mi­nus any ex­pla­na­tion. Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­count­ed her ob­jec­tion to the clause pre­vi­ous­ly, say­ing that the UNC had “told you so, but stick break in your ears and you don’t lis­ten.”

Not­ing the bill was in­tro­duced af­ter the May 18 Privy Coun­cil judg­ment, she claimed the Gov­ern­ment would have had an ad­vance copy of the judg­ment.’

Not­ing the Sen­ate amend­ments, she said it was sur­pris­ing Ar­mour did not ex­plain why he did it. Cit­ing a “com­e­dy of er­rors,” she re­count­ed her ob­jec­tions to the clause in a pre­vi­ous de­bate, say­ing elec­tions should have been called be­tween De­cem­ber to March 2023.

 “This elec­tion has been ex­tend­ed now for six months and we can­not say for how much longer, there’s no date ...

“How much longer will we de­prive cit­i­zens the right to elect their rep­re­sen­ta­tives, which is what the Privy Coun­cil ruled?” Per­sad-Bisses­sar asked.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar was re­mind­ed by the Speak­er it was a lim­it­ed amend­ment, and re-de­bat­ing what was said be­fore could not be done again.

An­nisette-George asked her to deal with the amend­ment and not re­turn to Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions.

Bar­ry told to apol­o­gise

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the ques­tion had to be asked why they were at Par­lia­ment and what was be­ing cor­rect­ed. “I can­not just come and say read these words and say ‘I agree’ and go home. If I’m  to agree to this amend­ment, we have to see what is the wrong we’re cor­rect­ing.”

The Speak­er said she was lim­it­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar on re­turn­ing to de­bate on the Privy Coun­cil de­ci­sion and call­ing the elec­tions. “I’m not al­low­ing that,” An­nisette-George added.

 Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­turned to her ob­jec­tions on the clause. She added that it would be un­fair if she could not say why the UNC ob­ject­ed to it. Per­sad-Bisses­sar was again re­mind­ed by the Speak­er about not be­ing al­lowed to re­hash the de­bate and that Per­sad-Bisses­sar would be aware of the Par­lia­ment’s Stand­ing Or­ders which all abide by.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader then said the clause cor­rects every­thing she had ob­ject­ed to but when the  AG ex­plained it be­fore in de­bate, he had spo­ken of the “de­fac­to doc­trine.” She was halt­ed by the  Speak­er who said she was run­ning afoul of the same thing and asked her to re­turn to the amend­ment mi­nus “de­fac­to doc­trine.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar asked if be­cause the AG had stayed silent yes­ter­day that the UNC could not de­bate the mat­ter. “I feel that is ob­jec­tion­able ... so we’re not al­lowed to speak ...”

An­nisette-George said Per­sad-Bisses­sar be­gan speak­ing at 2.19 pm and it was then 2.33 pm, “So I don’t think it’s ac­cu­rate to say your side isn’t be­ing al­lowed to say any­thing. You’ve been al­lowed a lot but once you keep with­in the con­fines of the Stand­ing Or­ders ...”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar replied, “(I) take to­tal ob­jec­tion to this course of ac­tion and I will not par­tic­i­pate in this de­bate! We should all leave ... this is to­tal–not democ­ra­cy, not democ­ra­cy!”

An­nisette-George asked de­part­ing UNC MPs not to dis­rupt pro­ceed­ings as they did so. UNC MP Bar­ry Padarath who protest­ed, as they left, was asked to apol­o­gise.

AG Ar­mour, con­clud­ing the de­bate, said it was un­true that the Gov­ern­ment got an ad­vance copy of the judg­ment. He too was re­mind­ed by the Speak­er she would not al­low any­one to car­ry the de­bate out­side of the lim­it­ed re­mit. The amend­ment was passed.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar sub­se­quent­ly told CNC3’s Jesse Ramdeo the episode was an­oth­er blot on T&T’s democ­ra­cy. She re­count­ed her ob­jec­tions to the bill and clause. She said it was the first time she had seen an At­tor­ney Gen­er­al pi­lot a bill mi­nus ex­pla­na­tion. She not­ed the Speak­er’s in­ter­ven­tions.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar felt she was stymied in giv­ing her point, not by the Speak­er, but she felt that was the Gov­ern­ment’s ap­proach as she not­ed there was a PNM lo­cal gov­ern­ment screen­ing yes­ter­day. She claimed the Gov­ern­ment was do­ing every­thing to “shut peo­ple up” and the walk­out was the UNC’s show of protest. She said UNC MPs would have re­turned to the cham­ber for the sec­ond bill be­ing de­bat­ed.