Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

All eyes are on the Par­lia­ment to­day for word from Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley on the cur­rent “hot but­ton” Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment is­sues—and whether that might in­clude an elec­tion date.

Mean­while, it has been con­firmed by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour that coun­cil­lors’ ac­tions con­tin­ue to be valid fol­low­ing the re­cent Privy Coun­cil rul­ing.

How­ev­er, spec­u­la­tion—in­clud­ing of a pos­si­ble lo­cal elec­tions date—was swirling yes­ter­day af­ter word that Row­ley will lead a team of PNM speak­ers at a pub­lic meet­ing to­mor­row in San Fer­nan­do. That area has a mar­gin­al re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion which the Op­po­si­tion UNC is tar­get­ing to win in the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment polls.

All of this arose from the May 18 Privy Coun­cil judg­ment which ruled that the Gov­ern­ment’s ex­ten­sion of the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment term from last De­cem­ber to De­cem­ber 3, 2023, was un­law­ful. The orig­i­nal end date for the term was March 2023.

Last Thurs­day, AG Ar­mour said he was seek­ing ad­vice on the judg­ment for the Prime Min­is­ter and Cab­i­net. Ar­mour added that elec­tion readi­ness would be among the mat­ters for con­sid­er­a­tion.

Since then, while cor­po­ra­tion ser­vices con­tin­ue, con­cerns have been ex­pressed in sev­er­al UNC ar­eas on coun­cil­lors’ sta­tus af­ter March 31, 2023, when the term should have end­ed. Av­o­cat/San Fran­cique coun­cil­lor Dood­nath Mayrhoo wrote to the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­istry on whether his post is le­gal. Pe­nal/Debe chair­man Dr Allen Sam­my said ma­jor de­ci­sions can­not be made.

Yes­ter­day in the Sen­ate, In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Dr Paul Richards asked Ar­mour, giv­en the Privy Coun­cil’s judg­ment and coun­cil­lors’ and al­der­men’s con­cerns about their sta­tus, what mea­sures are be­ing tak­en by the Gov­ern­ment to ad­dress the is­sue.

AG Ar­mour replied, “This mat­ter will be ad­dressed to­mor­row (Wednes­day) in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives by the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter.”

Richards asked if the Gov­ern­ment is con­cerned about de­ci­sions tak­en and ac­tions un­der­tak­en by coun­cil­lors and al­der­men un­der the present con­di­tions since the rul­ing. Ar­mour said, “In an­swer to the ques­tion, as I’ve said, this mat­ter will be ad­dressed to­mor­row by the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

“There is a well-known doc­trine, known as the de fac­to of­fi­cers’ doc­trine of great vin­tage, go­ing back to the 1730s, es­tab­lished, by among oth­ers, the case of Scadding and Lo­rant. And that de­ci­sion es­tab­lish­es that there is va­lid­i­ty in the ac­tions of the of­fi­cers who were du­ly elect­ed and con­tin­ue to be du­ly elect­ed un­til the de­ci­sion of the Privy Coun­cil, there’s no cause for con­cern.”

Richards asked if the Gov­ern­ment would bring any ac­tion to rem­e­dy any po­ten­tial sit­u­a­tion cre­at­ed by the ac­tion sub­ject to the Privy Coun­cil’s de­ci­sion, and Ar­mour replied, “As I’ve said, this mat­ter will be ad­dressed by the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.”

Coun­cil­lors’ acts con­tin­ue to be valid–AG

Ar­mour re­spond­ed sim­i­lar­ly to UNC Sen­a­tor Wade Mark’s query on the le­gal sta­tus of de­ci­sions and ac­tions tak­en by the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions since De­cem­ber 2, 2022

Ar­mour, not­ing the ear­li­er ques­tion, again cit­ed the de­ci­sion of Scadding and Lo­rant.

He said, “This stat­ed with re­spect to the ap­point­ment of vestry­men who were not legal­ly ap­point­ed but had con­tin­ued in of­fice over a con­sid­er­able pe­ri­od of time. And this is what the court said, dat­ing back to 1851, House of Lords.”

Ar­mour quot­ed, “’With re­gard to the com­pe­tence of the vestry­men, who were vestry­men de fac­to, but not vestry­men de ju­re, you will see at once that it would lead to the va­lid­i­ty of their acts when in such of­fice de­pend­ed on the pro­pri­ety of their elec­tion. It might tend, if doubts were cast up­on them, to con­se­quences of the most de­struc­tive kind. It would cre­ate un­cer­tain­ty with re­spect to the obe­di­ence to pub­lic of­fi­cers and it might al­so lead to per­sons, in­stead of re­sort­ing to or­di­nary le­gal reme­dies to set right any­thing done by the of­fi­cers, tak­ing the law in­to their own hands. I think there­fore, that the prin­ci­ple laid down by the learned judges, as the prin­ci­ple of law, is one that is in con­for­mi­ty with pub­lic con­ve­nience, with ref­er­ence to the dis­charge of the du­ties con­nect­ed with the of­fice.’”

Ar­mour de­clared, “The acts con­tin­ue to be valid on the de fac­to doc­trine of de fac­to of­fi­cers.”

Mark asked what would hap­pen to con­trac­tors who have to col­lect garbage in cor­po­ra­tions giv­en the Privy Coun­cil’s rul­ing and giv­en what Ar­mour had just in­di­cat­ed, the AG said all ques­tions com­ing out of the Privy Coun­cil’s de­ci­sion will be ad­dressed by the Prime Min­is­ter to­day in the House.

Mark asked if the Gov­ern­ment was “fur­ther­ing its il­le­gal­i­ty” with­out telling Par­lia­ment of the le­gal way for­ward. Ar­mour de­clared, “Let me put out of the ques­tion im­me­di­ate­ly, that the Gov­ern­ment is not per­pet­u­at­ing any il­le­gal­i­ty. There is no il­le­gal­i­ty oc­cur­ring.

“The Gov­ern­ment has ob­served the Privy Coun­cil’s de­ci­sion of May 18, 2023, it in­tends to fol­low the law as it al­ways has and al­ways will and will take all ac­tions ac­cord­ing to law.”

PNM of­fi­cials were cir­cu­lat­ing no­tice of to­mor­row’s San Fer­nan­do pub­lic meet­ing but were tight-lipped about whether it was the launch of PNM’s Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions cam­paign.

Op­po­si­tion to de­mand an­swers from Row­ley to­day

At UNC’s pub­lic meet­ing in San Fer­nan­do on Mon­day, UNC’s Sean Sobers an­nounced that the meet­ing had launched the par­ty’s Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment cam­paign.

Ahead of yes­ter­day’s rev­e­la­tion that Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley would speak in Par­lia­ment to­day on the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment di­rec­tion, the Op­po­si­tion was ex­pect­ed to de­mand an­swers from Row­ley to­day in Par­lia­ment on the sit­u­a­tion.

To­day’s  House agen­da is ex­pect­ed to in­clude the month­ly Prime Min­is­ter’s Ques­tions seg­ment

Fol­low­ing coun­cil­lors’ con­cerns, UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on Mon­day said UNC lawyers were draft­ing a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter to Row­ley to “call the elec­tions now! “

She said she would give Row­ley a few days and if he doesn’t an­swer, “We have our le­gal lu­mi­nary Ravi Bal­go­b­in Ma­haraj to take you back to  court to de­mand  that elec­tions be held.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she’d call on Row­ley to ad­dress coun­cil­lors, al­der­men and the pop­u­la­tion of the fol­low­ing con­cerns in­clud­ing if the of­fices of coun­cil­lors and al­der­men are cur­rent­ly va­cant.

She added, “My re­spect­ful view is, yes. They ex­pired in De­cem­ber last year. Coun­cil­lors, don’t do any­thing be­cause you’ll be held li­able. Don’t take ‘chain up’. You’d be per­son­al­ly li­able for act­ing il­le­gal­ly.

“If the (of­fices) are va­cant, on what date did they be­come va­cant? My view is, they be­came va­cant on 3rd De­cem­ber 2022. If they’re not cur­rent­ly va­cant, when will they be­come va­cant? And what’s the date of the next Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions?”

She claimed the Gov­ern­ment would try to use coun­cils when they aren’t legal­ly able to op­er­ate and they’d use chair­men and may­ors who can func­tion, “to do their bid­ding."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar claimed Gov­ern­ment  would “come to ex­tend fur­ther” to say coun­cil­lors “are  still alive.” But she added, whichev­er bill they were bring­ing to Par­lia­ment, “They have to come good and couldn’t bring a  Lazarus bill” to res­ur­rect any­thing or UNC would take the Gov­ern­ment to court again.