KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

Though a rise in gang-re­lat­ed in­ci­dents was deemed the main rea­son be­hind the lat­est State of Emer­gency (SoE) im­posed on March 3, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry Roger Alexan­der has re­fused to re­veal how many per­sons have been charged un­der the An­ti-Gang Act since the procla­ma­tion of the SoE, lead­ing the Op­po­si­tion bench to ac­cuse him of “hid­ing be­hind” stand­ing or­ders.

When asked about this and whether any­one has been charged in re­la­tion to the al­leged plot to mur­der se­nior law en­force­ment of­fi­cers, Alexan­der used his par­lia­men­tary pow­ers yes­ter­day to in­voke Stand­ing Or­der 28 (3).

This stand­ing or­der states a min­is­ter may de­cline to an­swer a ques­tion if, in his opin­ion, the pub­li­ca­tion of the an­swer would be con­trary to the pub­lic in­ter­est.

This is not the first time Alexan­der has used this stand­ing or­der when faced with ur­gent and oral ques­tions in the Par­lia­ment.

Alexan­der said, “I am con­strained to in­voke the pro­vi­sions of Stand­ing Or­der 28, three of the stand­ing or­ders out of def­er­ence of the work of Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).” 

Not sat­is­fied with the re­sponse, Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les pressed for sup­ple­men­tary ques­tions say­ing the Min­is­ter should ac­count to the pop­u­la­tion.

Op­po­si­tion MP Camille Robin­son-Reg­is al­so is­sued a state­ment yes­ter­day con­demn­ing Alexan­der’s use of the stand­ing or­der, say­ing it has be­come a shield against par­lia­men­tary ac­count­abil­i­ty.

Robin­son-Reg­is said, “Whilst the Stand­ing Or­ders do pro­vide a Min­is­ter with the dis­cre­tion to refuse to an­swer a ques­tion on such grounds, that dis­cre­tion was nev­er in­tend­ed to be ex­er­cised ar­bi­trar­i­ly, con­clu­sive­ly, or with­out scruti­ny. To sug­gest oth­er­wise would per­mit the ex­cep­tion to swal­low the fun­da­men­tal con­sti­tu­tion­al prin­ci­ple of min­is­te­r­i­al ac­count­abil­i­ty to Par­lia­ment. With­in the West­min­ster par­lia­men­tary tra­di­tion, dis­cre­tionary pow­ers con­ferred up­on Min­is­ters are not im­mune from ex­am­i­na­tion mere­ly be­cause a Min­is­ter ut­ters the phrase ‘na­tion­al in­ter­est.’ A re­fusal to an­swer must bear a rea­son­able and ob­jec­tive­ly jus­ti­fi­able re­la­tion­ship to the pro­tec­tion of an ac­tu­al pub­lic in­ter­est con­cern. Oth­er­wise, Stand­ing Or­der 28(3) risks be­com­ing noth­ing more than a con­ve­nient mech­a­nism to avoid le­git­i­mate par­lia­men­tary over­sight. The pro­vi­sion per­mit­ting a Min­is­ter to de­cline to an­swer on grounds of pub­lic or na­tion­al in­ter­est is not unique to Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

She al­so fired back at House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh, who al­so dis­missed con­cerns about Gov­ern­ment ac­count­abil­i­ty in Par­lia­ment as “tired old sto­ry” while de­fend­ing Alexan­der’s re­fusal to an­swer ques­tions tied to the on­go­ing SoE and al­leged threats against se­nior of­fi­cials.

She added, “Im­por­tant­ly, when the Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip rose to ask a sup­ple­men­tary ques­tion fol­low­ing the Min­is­ter’s in­vo­ca­tion of Stand­ing Or­der 28(3), the Speak­er ought prop­er­ly to have per­mit­ted the sup­ple­men­tary ques­tion to be asked. The very pur­pose of a sup­ple­men­tary ques­tion is to test, clar­i­fy or probe the ba­sis of a min­is­te­r­i­al re­sponse, par­tic­u­lar­ly where a Min­is­ter has re­lied up­on an ex­cep­tion to the or­di­nary du­ty of par­lia­men­tary ac­count­abil­i­ty. Per­mit­ting the sup­ple­men­tary ques­tion would not have com­pelled the Min­is­ter to an­swer. If the Min­is­ter ul­ti­mate­ly chose to main­tain the re­fusal, then that would have been the end of the mat­ter. How­ev­er, what the Speak­er could not prop­er­ly do was pre­vent the Chief Whip from even ques­tion­ing the ba­sis up­on which the Stand­ing Or­der was in­voked. Such an ap­proach risks con­vert­ing Stand­ing Or­der 28(3) in­to an un­chal­lenge­able shield against scruti­ny, which it was nev­er in­tend­ed to be. The Speak­er must ap­pre­ci­ate that elect­ed Mem­bers rise in the House not on their own be­half, but as rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the peo­ple, ex­er­cis­ing one of Par­lia­ment’s cen­tral con­sti­tu­tion­al func­tions: hold­ing the Ex­ec­u­tive to ac­count.”

She warned Jagdeo not to over­ly de­fend the min­is­ter’s re­fusal of an­swer­ing ques­tions by us­ing stand­ing or­ders.

But, Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Bar­ry Padarath al­so came to Alexan­der’s de­fence yes­ter­day, as he too dis­missed al­le­ga­tions that the Gov­ern­ment is fail­ing to ac­count to the pop­u­la­tion as “noth­ing short of a de­flec­tion”. 

Min­is­ter: 69 home in­va­sions re­port­ed, 25 peo­ple charged

While he did not dis­close de­tails on gang-re­lat­ed is­sues, Alexan­der yes­ter­day re­vealed that a to­tal of 69 re­ports of home in­va­sions have been re­port­ed to the TTPS, and 25 per­sons have been charged as of April 19 since the Home In­va­sion Bill came in­to ef­fect.

He added that ad­di­tion­al per­sons will be placed be­fore the courts to be dealt with as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue.