Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

There will be no dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion by the Sen­ate’s Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges against Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tors Janelle John-Bates and Faris Al-Rawi.

The First Ses­sion of the 13th Par­lia­ment came to an end at mid­night and ac­cord­ing to the Stand­ing Or­ders, a Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges probe ex­pires or laps­es at the end of a par­lia­men­tary ses­sion, even if the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is still on­go­ing.

How­ev­er, it still leaves un­cer­tain­ty sur­round­ing the fu­ture of John-Bates, whose of­fer of res­ig­na­tion re­mains un­der con­sid­er­a­tion by Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les.

Dur­ing yes­ter­day’s Sen­ate sit­ting, no men­tion was made of the com­mit­tee, nor was a re­port laid.

Pro­ro­ga­tion brings all un­fin­ished par­lia­men­tary busi­ness to an end. Since a Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges is clas­si­fied as a Ses­sion­al Se­lect Com­mit­tee un­der Stand­ing Or­der 79 of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and Sen­ate, its ex­is­tence is tied di­rect­ly to the life of the par­lia­men­tary ses­sion.

As a re­sult, once the Pres­i­dent is­sues a procla­ma­tion pro­rogu­ing Par­lia­ment, the com­mit­tee is au­to­mat­i­cal­ly dis­solved. Any on­go­ing in­quiry, wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny, or un­fin­ished draft re­port im­me­di­ate­ly laps­es, and the com­mit­tee los­es all au­thor­i­ty to meet, sum­mon wit­ness­es, or con­tin­ue its work.

On May 1, John-Bates and Al-Rawi were re­ferred to the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee fol­low­ing al­le­ga­tions that they im­prop­er­ly com­pro­mised a par­lia­men­tary in­quiry in­to the state ac­qui­si­tion of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

Elec­tron­ic “track changes” on a for­mal wit­ness state­ment sub­mit­ted by for­mer health min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh re­vealed that John-Bates, then an ac­tive mem­ber of the com­mit­tee over­see­ing the probe, and Al-Rawi had di­rect­ly as­sist­ed in al­ter­ing the doc­u­ment.

This joint in­volve­ment led to a suc­cess­ful re­fer­ral mo­tion on the grounds that as­sist­ing a wit­ness fun­da­men­tal­ly un­der­mined the im­par­tial­i­ty, in­tegri­ty and con­fi­den­tial­i­ty of the par­lia­men­tary over­sight process.

Due to Al-Rawi be­ing on the com­mit­tee, it forced Sen­ate Pres­i­dent and Com­mit­tee Chair Wade Mark to re­place all but one of the mem­bers.

Sen­a­tor Dr Amery Browne was ap­point­ed to the com­mit­tee in place of Al-Rawi. Oth­er re­place­ments in­clud­ed Eli Za­k­our (re­plac­ing Dar­rell Al­la­har) and In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Sophia Chote, SC (re­plac­ing Michael Si­mon de la Bastide). On­ly At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie re­mained.

The Stand­ing Or­ders say the work of the com­mit­tee must be kept pri­vate and there­fore Guardian Me­dia was un­able to de­ter­mine how of­ten the com­mit­tee met.

How­ev­er, even as the work com­mit­tee lapsed, the fu­ture of John-Bates as a sen­a­tor still hangs in the bal­ance.

While she of­fered her res­ig­na­tion to her po­lit­i­cal leader on May 1, Beck­les has yet to an­nounce if she has ac­cept­ed it.

For the past three weeks, Beck­les has re­peat­ed­ly said that it is still un­der con­sid­er­a­tion. She added that she will al­so not bend to Gov­ern­ment pres­sure and make a de­ci­sion un­til she is ready.

It has been a com­mon oc­cur­rence to speak with Beck­les out­side of the Red House on the days Par­lia­ment sits. How­ev­er, she has not made her­self avail­able to the me­dia for the past three weeks.

Yes­ter­day, Guardian Me­dia was able to speak briefly with John-Bates, who was asked for an up­date.

“I think the Op­po­si­tion Leader has giv­en a com­pre­hen­sive an­swer on that. And I wouldn’t like to say any­thing fur­ther. So, when she’s ready, she will do what she has to do.”

Asked how her re­la­tion­ship with Beck­les is cur­rent­ly, John-Bates replied, “I serve at her plea­sure, and it has been and is still a plea­sure to serve un­der the Ho­n­ourable Pen­ne­lope Beck­les.”

An at­tempt to get com­ments from Al-Rawi was un­suc­cess­ful.