Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning is chal­leng­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) process for de­ter­min­ing the par­ty groups el­i­gi­ble to par­tic­i­pate in in­ter­nal elec­tions, warn­ing that the list of 30 par­ty groups de­clared for the con­stituen­cy is not a valid roll and that any ex­ec­u­tive elect­ed on it would be open to chal­lenge.

Man­ning is al­so ask­ing PNM’s Cen­tral Ex­ec­u­tive to state the date on which any com­plaint which may present­ly be be­fore PNM’s In­ves­ti­ga­tions Com­mit­tee was laid, whether and when each was re­ferred, and the date by which each will be de­ter­mined.

This fol­lows re­cent pub­lic hints by PNM lead­er­ship of­fi­cials about some mem­bers’ com­plaints about San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning and calls for dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion against him.

These points were made in a re­port by Man­ning on the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the process con­cern­ing San Fer­nan­do East and the re­ports of PNM’s In­quiry team, head­ed by Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus, and Par­ty Group Ver­i­fi­ca­tion team, head­ed by Ernest Es­delle.

Each was ap­point­ed to in­ves­ti­gate com­plaints by for­mer San Fer­nan­do East chair­man Pa­tri­cia Alex­is on June 10 and Man­ning on June 16 re­gard­ing is­sues in San Fer­nan­do East con­cern­ing each oth­er.

Re­ports by both teams were large­ly against Man­ning’s con­cerns. He did not get the re­ports but was no­ti­fied of find­ings which he has re­ject­ed.

Ac­cord­ing to the Ver­i­fi­ca­tion team re­port, 15 par­ty groups were omit­ted.

The PNM at last Fri­day’s Gen­er­al Coun­cil man­dat­ed San Fer­nan­do East par­ty groups to start hold­ing in­ter­nal elec­tions from Sep­tem­ber 4 to Oc­to­ber 10 for a new ex­ec­u­tive to be elect­ed be­fore PNM’s No­vem­ber con­ven­tion.

Man­ning’s re­port, which was pro­duced for PNM’s Gen­er­al Coun­cil, ex­am­ined whether the process con­duct­ed re­gard­ing San Fer­nan­do East and the re­ports pro­duced by that process con­formed to PNM’s Con­sti­tu­tion and its foun­da­tion­al tenets of nat­ur­al jus­tice.

Con­clu­sions in­clude:

* Two bod­ies un­known to the Con­sti­tu­tion pro­duced the find­ings. Nei­ther the In­quiry nor Ver­i­fi­ca­tion teams are known to PNM’s Con­sti­tu­tion or un­der PNM Stand­ing Com­mit­tees. No Reg­u­la­tion gov­erns their com­po­si­tion, quo­rum, pro­ce­dure, ev­i­dence, record-keep­ing or re­port­ing.

* A de­ter­mi­na­tion made by a body that has no con­sti­tu­tion­al ex­is­tence, in the ex­er­cise of a func­tion as­signed by the Con­sti­tu­tion to a dif­fer­ent and named body, is ul­tra vires and of no ef­fect.

* The two re­ports on that ground alone, is in­ca­pable of sup­port­ing con­se­quences drawn from them.

* PNM’s Con­sti­tu­tion as­signs as­sess­ment of sta­tus of par­ty groups to the Field Of­fi­cer’s Com­mit­tee, which was by-passed.

* The 30 par­ty groups is there­fore not a valid roll of the con­stituen­cy, and an elec­tion con­duct­ed up­on it is not an elec­tion of the San Fer­nan­do East Con­stituen­cy Group with­in the mean­ing of Ar­ti­cles 9 and 10 of PNM’s Con­sti­tu­tion. Any ex­ec­u­tive so con­sti­tut­ed, and any del­e­gates so elect­ed to the An­nu­al Con­stituen­cy Con­fer­ence or the An­nu­al Con­ven­tion, would be open to chal­lenge on the same grounds.

* A de­ter­mi­na­tion af­fect­ing the rights of a mem­ber/Unit, made with­out no­tice, dis­clo­sure, hear­ing and rea­sons, is void for breach of PNM’s stan­dard of nat­ur­al jus­tice.

* Fif­teen par­ty groups were de­prived of sta­tus by a process of “non-ver­i­fi­ca­tion” which PNM’s Con­sti­tu­tion does not recog­nise.

* In PNM’s Con­sti­tu­tion Ar­ti­cle 9(12), a par­ty group is with­out sta­tus or en­ti­tle­ment on­ly where it has been sus­pend­ed or deemed to be in abeyance by Cen­tral Ex­ec­u­tive. No such de­ci­sion has been com­mu­ni­cat­ed in re­spect of the 15 groups. They haven’t been sus­pend­ed; dis­band­ed or de­clared not to have been ver­i­fied.

* It fol­lows that the two re­ports are of no con­sti­tu­tion­al ef­fect, that find­ings adopt­ed can­not stand, and that San Fer­nan­do East in­ter­nal elec­tions built up­on those find­ings are void­able at the Gen­er­al Coun­cil’s in­stance.

Man­ning re­quest­ed that re­ports be de­clared of no con­sti­tu­tion­al ef­fect and as­sess­ment of par­ty group’s sta­tus be re­ferred for Field Of­fi­cers Com­mit­tee in­ves­ti­ga­tion; that par­ty groups be giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty to be heard and that par­ty group’s omit­ted with­out ex­pla­na­tion be re­stored.

He re­quest­ed that in­ter­nal elec­tions start­ed Sep­tem­ber 4 be sus­pend­ed pend­ing de­ter­mi­na­tion of these mat­ters, and any sub­se­quent elec­tion be con­duct­ed with in­de­pen­dent scru­ti­neers.

The re­port stat­ed that all rights of Man­ning and of mem­bers/Par­ty Groups af­fect­ed, un­der PNM’s Con­sti­tu­tion are “ful­ly re­served.”

Gon­za­les mum on dis­ci­pli­nary process for Man­ning

PNM chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les has de­clined to say whether the par­ty has ini­ti­at­ed dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ceed­ings against San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning, as Man­ning’s re­port states that the In­quiry team’s find­ings are dis­ci­pli­nary in sub­stance.

Gon­za­les de­clined to re­ply to Guardian Me­dia’s queries on whether the par­ty has ini­ti­at­ed the dis­ci­pli­nary process against Man­ning, the sta­tus of in­ves­ti­ga­tions to­wards that and who are the mem­bers who seek dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion apart from ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers.

Gon­za­les said, “I pre­fer not to make pub­lic com­ments on the in­ter­nal process­es and mat­ters con­cern­ing the par­ty.”