Ke­jan Haynes

Op­po­si­tion MPs walked out of Par­lia­ment on Fri­day, ac­cus­ing the Speak­er of “bi­ased and prej­u­di­cial be­hav­iour” be­fore Gov­ern­ment mem­bers ap­proved a mo­tion to ap­point Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin as act­ing Com­mis­sion­er.

The dis­pute came to a head as Cou­va South MP Bar­ry Padarath was speak­ing when St Ann’s East MP Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly rose on Stand­ing Or­der 55(1)(b), ob­ject­ing to “te­dious rep­e­ti­tion.”

“We’ve heard these points over, over and over and over again,” she said, but was over­ruled by Speak­er Jagdeo Singh.

Min­utes lat­er, she stood on an­oth­er Stand­ing Or­der as Padarath ref­er­enced a 56 per cent drop in cer­tain crimes in re­cent months. Gads­by-Dol­ly ar­gued the Speak­er had ruled it was a “nar­row mo­tion” and such points were not rel­e­vant. Singh re­spond­ed that Arou­ca/Lopinot MP Mar­vin Gon­za­les had “opened the door” to ex­pand the de­bate.

“But Mr Speak­er, you stopped him!” Gads­by-Dol­ly replied.

“I stopped him on crime, and 23 mur­ders in three days,” Singh said.

When Gads­by-Dol­ly not­ed that Padarath was al­so speak­ing on crime sta­tis­tics, Singh told her, “Do not ar­gue with me. Over­ruled. Just get on with it.”

Op­po­si­tion mem­bers then walked out, as Padarath shout­ed af­ter them:

“Mr Speak­er, we say to them, you can run but you can’t hide. The peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go will mea­sure you to­day by your lack of com­mit­ment to process. The peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go will mea­sure the Op­po­si­tion to­day as we see the emp­ty bench­es.”

In a state­ment ti­tled Enough is Enough, the Op­po­si­tion said all its MPs were “left with no choice but to leave the sit­ting” af­ter months of what they de­scribed as un­fair treat­ment by the Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer.

“The pat­tern of un­fair treat­ment and rul­ings has con­tin­ued unchecked and un­ad­dressed,” the re­lease said, ac­cus­ing the Speak­er of fail­ing to act im­par­tial­ly or up­hold the Con­sti­tu­tion and Stand­ing Or­ders.

The state­ment al­so claimed the Speak­er had “con­sis­tent­ly re­ject­ed the ma­jor­i­ty of Ur­gent Ques­tions and Prime Min­is­ter’s Ques­tions filed by the Op­po­si­tion” while al­low­ing Gov­ern­ment MPs to “shout, dis­rupt and en­gage in un­par­lia­men­tary be­hav­iour with­out re­straint or rep­ri­mand.”

They warned any at­tempt to si­lence their voic­es “will not be tol­er­at­ed,” re­mind­ing the Gov­ern­ment that “the Par­lia­ment be­longs to the peo­ple, not to any po­lit­i­cal par­ty or Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer.”

The walk­out came mo­ments be­fore the Gov­ern­ment ap­proved the mo­tion to al­low Ben­jamin to act as Com­mis­sion­er while Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro at­tends the In­ter­na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Chiefs of Po­lice (IACP) An­nu­al Con­fer­ence in Den­ver, Col­orado, from Oc­to­ber 18 to 21.

By law, any ap­point­ment of an act­ing Com­mis­sion­er or Deputy Com­mis­sion­er re­quires par­lia­men­tary ap­proval, even for a short pe­ri­od. As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er Curt Si­mon will act as Deputy Com­mis­sion­er dur­ing Gue­var­ro’s ab­sence.

The IACP con­fer­ence is the world’s largest law en­force­ment gath­er­ing, at­tract­ing more than 16,000 pub­lic safe­ty pro­fes­sion­als for train­ing, net­work­ing, and pol­i­cy dis­cus­sions.