Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip and Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Pointe-a-Pierre, Dr David Lee, says the Privy Coun­cil’s rul­ing on the post­pone­ment of T&T’s Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions proves that the Op­po­si­tion Leader was “right to stand her ground”.

Ac­cord­ing to the Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip, the Op­po­si­tion Leader’s ac­tion sought to “pro­tect our democ­ra­cy”.

“Cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go would see clear­ly from this morn­ing’s judg­ment that Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar’s fight against this dra­con­ian move was not based on par­ti­san pol­i­tics but root­ed in her de­sire to de­fend, pro­tect, and pre­serve the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic right of every sin­gle cit­i­zen in every com­mu­ni­ty across our na­tion as stat­ed in Para­graph 32 of the Privy Coun­cil’s judg­ment,” Dr Lee stat­ed in a re­lease.

Para­graph 32 of the Privy Coun­cil’s judg­ment reads:

“The rights con­ferred by a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic sys­tem of gov­ern­ment are not on­ly in­di­vid­ual rights en­joyed by each per­son en­ti­tled to vote. It is al­so the right of all mem­bers of the rel­e­vant com­mu­ni­ty to be gov­erned by rep­re­sen­ta­tives cho­sen de­mo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly, whether or not in­di­vid­u­al­ly they are en­ti­tled to vote or have ex­er­cised that right…”

The Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip says as a re­sult of the rul­ing, peo­ple in Op­po­si­tion-led con­stituen­cies “have the abil­i­ty to ex­er­cise their con­sti­tu­tion­al de­mo­c­ra­t­ic rights.”

“No longer can the PNM gov­ern­ment hide from fac­ing the peo­ple of this na­tion at the polls as they must re­spect this morn­ing’s rul­ing which re­flects their dis­dain and dis­re­gard for the prin­ci­ples of trans­par­ent de­mo­c­ra­t­ic gov­er­nance,” Dr Lee said.

He added: “They must call the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions now.”