Ke­jan Haynes and

Chester Sam­bra­no

There seems to be no plan, nor is there any con­sti­tu­tion­al re­quire­ment, for In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors fol­low­ing the in­au­gu­ra­tion of Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo as the new Pres­i­dent of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The ques­tion of whether the In­de­pen­dents, who were ap­point­ed by for­mer Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes, should of­fer to step down arose af­ter Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo took her oath of of­fice on Mon­day. Guardian Me­dia spoke with five of the nine sit­ting In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors to find out their thoughts on the mat­ter.

Paul Richards, who was ap­point­ed to the Up­per House in Sep­tem­ber 2015, said he has been asked the ques­tions sev­er­al times.

“There is no re­quire­ment for res­ig­na­tion. In a gen­er­al sense, par­lia­men­tar­i­ans are ap­point­ed for a par­lia­men­tary ses­sion and dur­ing that ses­sion a sit­ting Pres­i­dent can ap­point In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors ac­cord­ing to the Con­sti­tu­tion, or re­place In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors as their will dic­tates.

“When Pres­i­dent Weekes be­came Pres­i­dent the on­ly In­de­pen­dent who re­signed was then Sen­a­tor Ma­habir and that was his choice at the time,” he said.

Sen­a­tor Hazel Thomp­son-Ahye point­ed to Sec­tions 39-45 of the Con­sti­tu­tion.

“Every Sen­a­tor shall va­cate his seat in the Sen­ate at the next dis­so­lu­tion of Par­lia­ment af­ter his ap­point­ment, so it fol­lows a Par­lia­men­tary term and not the Pres­i­dent’s,” she said.

Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira added: “The new pres­i­dent has the dis­cre­tion and the pow­er to change one of us, two of us, three of us, the whole bench if she wants be­cause we still are at her plea­sure, that’s en­tire­ly the new Pres­i­dent’s call.”

He said some­one men­tioned to him that Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo had in­di­cat­ed in an in­ter­view that she was go­ing to let the in­de­pen­dent bench con­tin­ue to serve out this par­lia­men­tary term, “which would be wise, be­cause I mean, you know, you just come in­to the of­fice and to be just mak­ing changes with­out hav­ing set­tled down might not be ap­pro­pri­ate.”

Sen­a­tors Am­ri­ta De­onar­ine and Sen­a­tor Maria Dil­lon-Re­my shared sim­i­lar views.

De­onar­ine said: “I will def­i­nite­ly make it clear that I’m here to serve the coun­try and it’s re­al­ly en­tire­ly up to the Pres­i­dent whether she wish­es to change the bench or to change me as one of the in­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors. So I’m leav­ing it en­tire­ly up to her. I’m here to serve, you know, and if she wants me to con­tin­ue to serve, I will serve.”

Dil­lon-Re­my said: "Our new Pres­i­dent does have the pre­rog­a­tive to re­voke my ap­point­ment and I am pre­pared for this. Un­til then I serve in my cur­rent ca­pac­i­ty.”

Clerk of the House Jacqui Samp­son-Meiguel said there is no es­tab­lished prac­tice that re­quires In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors to ten­der their res­ig­na­tion to the Pres­i­dent up­on the com­ing in­to of­fice of a new Pres­i­dent.

“The de­ci­sion as to whether the seat of an in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor is to be va­cat­ed and a new per­son ap­point­ed is a de­ci­sion of the Pres­i­dent in his or her own dis­cre­tion. If an In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor wish­es they could re­sign at any time,” she said.

On Ju­ly 31, 2013, then Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona cre­at­ed a na­tion­al stir when he re­placed four In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors midterm.

He ap­point­ed Dr Dhanayshar Ma­habir, Hugh Rus­sell Ian Roach, An­tho­ny Vieira and Daniel Small with ef­fect from Au­gust 2, 2013. They re­placed Pro­fes­sor Harold Ramkissoon, Dr James Arm­strong, Corinne Bap­tiste-Mck­night and Dr Lennox Bernard.

“I saw a need to re­tool the com­po­si­tion of the in­de­pen­dent sen­a­to­r­i­al bench. I have lis­tened and I have al­so ob­served for years the gaps in that com­po­si­tion,” Car­mona said.

When Paula-Mae Weekes took of­fice on March 19, 2018, Dr Ma­habir of­fered his res­ig­na­tion ef­fec­tive at the end of the Third Ses­sion of Par­lia­ment. He said it was to al­low Weekes to ex­er­cise her con­sti­tu­tion­al pow­er to choose In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors.