Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor- News­gath­er­ing’

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

The Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) walk-out dur­ing last Fri­day’s Par­lia­ment ses­sion marked an es­ca­la­tion of months-long ten­sions with House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh.

Dur­ing the sit­ting, Singh had re­peat­ed­ly over­ruled MPs dur­ing de­bate on the ap­point­ment of Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin as act­ing Com­mis­sion­er, prompt­ing the PNM to ac­cuse him of bias and of lim­it­ing their ca­pac­i­ty to scru­ti­nise the Gov­ern­ment. It was the lat­est in a se­ries of on­go­ing clash­es over pro­ce­dur­al rul­ings, sup­ple­men­tal and ur­gent ques­tions, and the Speak­er’s strict in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the Stand­ing Or­ders.

Ten­sion deep­ened on Sep­tem­ber 19 dur­ing Prime Min­is­ter’s Ques­tion Time. Singh ruled that Op­po­si­tion MPs could not ask sup­ple­men­tal ques­tions, re­ject­ing ar­gu­ments from Arou­ca Lopinot MP Mar­vin Gon­za­les that the Stand­ing Or­ders al­lowed fol­low-ups based on a min­is­ter’s re­sponse.

Singh cit­ed Stand­ing Or­ders 26, 27, and 28, and ref­er­enced a Privy Coun­cil case, stress­ing, “I can­not ar­ro­gate on­to my­self a pow­er which I sim­ply do not have.”

Port-of-Spain North MP Stu­art Young point­ed to past prac­tice un­der Stand­ing Or­der 2, al­low­ing sup­ple­men­tals by anal­o­gy with the UK House of Com­mons. How­ev­er, Singh ac­knowl­edged his lack of pri­or par­lia­men­tary ex­pe­ri­ence, say­ing, “I was not a mem­ber of this House,” and sug­gest­ed the Stand­ing Or­ders Com­mit­tee clar­i­fy the mat­ter.

Singh, a for­mer lawyer with no pri­or par­lia­men­tary ex­pe­ri­ence, has run sit­tings with a strict, of­ten le­gal­is­tic in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the Stand­ing Or­ders, un­set­tling Op­po­si­tion MPs ac­cus­tomed to greater flex­i­bil­i­ty from pre­vi­ous Speak­ers.

Ob­jec­tion to block­ing of ur­gent ques­tions

The Op­po­si­tion’s frus­tra­tion with the Speak­er’s rul­ings has ex­tend­ed be­yond pro­ce­dur­al dis­putes to the re­jec­tion of mul­ti­ple ur­gent ques­tions. The re­peat­ed block­ing of ur­gent ques­tions has height­ened ten­sions, with Op­po­si­tion MPs ar­gu­ing that the Speak­er’s nar­row in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the Stand­ing Or­ders lim­its their abil­i­ty to hold the Gov­ern­ment to ac­count. Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment mem­bers, how­ev­er, main­tain that Singh’s rul­ings are con­sis­tent with par­lia­men­tary pro­ce­dure.

Across sev­er­al sit­tings since June, Singh has dis­al­lowed most ques­tions sub­mit­ted un­der Stand­ing Or­ders 26 and 27, which gov­ern ur­gent and Prime Min­is­ter’s ques­tions. Dur­ing the June 27 sit­ting, on­ly one of nine ques­tions di­rect­ed to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was al­lowed. Months of blocked ques­tions, ac­cord­ing to par­lia­men­tary sources, cov­ered is­sues rang­ing from flood­ing and crime to state com­pa­ny man­age­ment, ten­sions with Venezuela and David Lee’s re­cent re-ar­rest.

On Sep­tem­ber 12, just two of four ques­tions were per­mit­ted—one con­cern­ing ex­ec­u­tive changes at WASA and an­oth­er on re­cruit­ment of its new man­age­ment team. Ques­tions in­volv­ing for­eign re­la­tions and em­ploy­ment ter­mi­na­tions and CEPEP or URP were ruled out.

At the Oc­to­ber 10 sit­ting, on­ly one of five ur­gent ques­tions sub­mit­ted by the Op­po­si­tion was al­lowed. That lone ques­tion, from Arou­ca Lopinot MP Gon­za­les, con­cerned the dis­missal of the Chief of De­fence Staff. Dur­ing the ex­change, Min­is­ter of De­fence Wayne Sturge in­voked Stand­ing Or­der 27(1)(g), a rule al­low­ing min­is­ters to with­hold in­for­ma­tion if dis­clo­sure would be con­trary to the pub­lic in­ter­est.

Stand­ing Or­der 27(1)(g) in­voked

Op­po­si­tion MPs have re­peat­ed­ly raised con­cerns over Stand­ing Or­der 27(1)(g), which al­lows min­is­ters to with­hold an­swers if dis­clo­sure would be con­trary to the pub­lic in­ter­est.

On June 27, Diego Mar­tin North/East MP Colm Im­bert asked the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance to ex­plain the ter­mi­na­tion of Dr Alvin Hi­laire as gov­er­nor of the Cen­tral Bank. The min­is­ter in­voked 27(1)(g), cit­ing the pub­lic in­ter­est ex­emp­tion. Sim­i­lar­ly, Arou­ca Lopinot MP Gon­za­les had a ques­tion on the ter­mi­na­tion of nine WASA ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cers blocked un­der the same pro­vi­sion.

On Oc­to­ber 10, Min­is­ter of De­fence Wayne Sturge again re­lied on 27(1)(g) when asked about the sud­den dis­missal of the Chief of De­fence Staff.

In his ex­pla­na­tion, Singh out­lined that the Stand­ing Or­ders ex­plic­it­ly grant min­is­ters the right to refuse an­swers in the pub­lic in­ter­est and said the Speak­er has “no resid­ual dis­cre­tionary pow­er to chal­lenge, ques­tion or call to ac­count the in­vo­ca­tion of the pub­lic in­ter­est by the min­is­ter.” Singh com­pared the pro­ce­dure to pub­lic in­ter­est im­mu­ni­ty in a court of law, not­ing that ad­min­is­tra­tive de­ci­sion-mak­ing is “poly­cen­tric in na­ture” and not sub­ject to sec­ond-guess­ing.

His­tor­i­cal par­al­lels and pro­ce­dur­al con­cerns

Ten­sions be­tween the op­po­si­tion and the Speak­er are not new.

When the UNC was in op­po­si­tion, MPs raised con­cerns about pro­ce­dur­al rul­ings un­der then Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George, who of­ten cur­tailed sup­ple­men­tal ques­tions us­ing phras­es such as “that ques­tion does not arise” or di­rect­ed MPs to file new ques­tions un­der the rel­e­vant Stand­ing Or­der or dur­ing Pri­vate Mem­bers’ Day. MPs were al­so chas­tised for stray­ing from the scope of their ques­tions.

An­nisette-George of­ten clashed with the UNC, who tried to raise is­sues like crime or the PNM’s han­dling of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic as mat­ters of ur­gent pub­lic im­por­tance.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar lat­er raised con­cerns about An­nisette-George’s reap­point­ment as Speak­er af­ter the 2020 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, cit­ing bias in cur­tail­ing op­po­si­tion con­tri­bu­tions, deny­ing mo­tions or ur­gent mat­ters, and fail­ing to de­clare con­flicts of in­ter­est, in­clud­ing her hus­band’s role as chair­man of Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny dur­ing re­lat­ed de­bates.

Stand­ing or­ders and con­cen­trat­ed pow­er

The Stand­ing Or­ders of the House were amend­ed in 2015 un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment to give the Speak­er greater au­thor­i­ty, in­clud­ing con­trol over speak­ing time and pow­er to make rules that can­not be chal­lenged. In a 2021 in­ter­view, for­mer Health min­is­ter dur­ing the PP, Dr Fuad Khan, said these changes had un­in­tend­ed con­se­quences for the op­po­si­tion, con­cen­trat­ing pow­er in the Speak­er’s hands and al­low­ing ar­gu­ments to be cut off when deemed “te­dious or repet­i­tive.” Khan not­ed the re­forms were not de­lib­er­ate­ly de­signed to dis­ad­van­tage the op­po­si­tion, but in prac­tice stymied mi­nor­i­ty voic­es while giv­ing gov­ern­ment MPs greater lee­way.

Past com­plaints un­der Wade Mark

The is­sue of Speak­er bias has a long his­to­ry. In 2011, then op­po­si­tion leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley ac­cused then House Speak­er Wade Mark of “bul­ly­ing” PNM MPs nd pre-emp­tive­ly rul­ing on their speech­es. Row­ley said Mark’s in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the Stand­ing Or­ders pro­tect­ed the gov­ern­ment and sti­fled crit­i­cism, warn­ing that such prac­tices could re­duce Par­lia­ment to a fo­rum where on­ly gov­ern­ment-ap­proved mat­ters are dis­cussed. Wade Mark is now Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate.