Renu­ka Singh

Se­nior Coun­sel Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj has de­fend­ed House Speak­er Brigid An­nisette-George’s han­dling of last Thurs­day’s mo­tion by the Op­po­si­tion to re­move Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes.

While the Op­po­si­tion clam­oured for the mo­tion to be de­bat­ed and at­tacked An­nis­sette-George for re­fus­ing to al­low it, Ma­haraj said the Con­sti­tu­tion does not al­low for a de­bate un­til the mat­ter is passed by a two-thirds ma­jor­i­ty of the Elec­toral Col­lege.

The Op­po­si­tion nev­er got that far as the mo­tion on­ly re­ceived 24 votes in favour and 47 against by the Elec­toral Col­lege, around one-third of the votes.

“The Elec­toral Col­lege, there­fore, is the body to de­cide whether an in­ves­ti­ga­tion is to pro­ceed by a tri­bunal con­sti­tut­ed to in­ves­ti­gate the com­plaint,” Ma­haraj said in a state­ment.

The mo­tion, Ma­haraj said, must be adopt­ed by a vote, which means that the “mo­tion to go for­ward re­quires a vote, not a de­bate,” Ma­haraj stressed.

With­out that two-thirds vote in favour, the mat­ter could not go for­ward, he added.

“If that num­ber of votes is not ob­tained, there can be no in­ves­ti­ga­tion. That is what hap­pened in this case with the mo­tion filed by the leader of Op­po­si­tion,” Ma­haraj said.

Ma­haraj said that if the req­ui­site vote for the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is ob­tained, a tri­bunal is ap­point­ed by the Chief Jus­tice.

That tri­bunal then com­pris­es four oth­er judges and the Chief Jus­tice.

“That tri­bunal in­ves­ti­gates the com­plaint and then presents a re­port on the facts to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives,” Ma­haraj said.

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Bridgid Annisette-George MP. (Image courtesy Parliament Secretariat)

“The third stage is that the Elec­toral Col­lege has to con­sid­er the re­port of the tri­bunal and it is on­ly if a res­o­lu­tion to re­move the Pres­i­dent from of­fice is sup­port­ed by votes of not less than two-thirds of the to­tal mem­ber­ship of the Elec­toral Col­lege, can the Pres­i­dent be re­moved from of­fice,” he said.

Ma­haraj point­ed out that the first stage in the pro­ce­dure was lim­it­ed to a “vote by the mem­bers.”

“Sec­tion 36 (c) of the Con­sti­tu­tion states that the Mo­tion is adopt­ed by the vote of not less than two-thirds of the to­tal mem­ber­ship,” he said.

Dur­ing the de­bate, the Op­po­si­tion pound­ed their desks and de­mand­ed a de­bate. They said the Speak­er was deny­ing them their right to be heard, not­ing that they were rep­re­sent­ing the voice of the peo­ple, which was be­ing si­lenced. Fur­ther­more, they ar­gued that the Speak­er was stymy­ing the prin­ci­ple of such a mo­tion, which they claimed re­quired de­bate.

Ma­haraj, how­ev­er, dis­agrees.

“If the Speak­er did that, she would have act­ed un­con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly and con­trary to the oath she took as Speak­er for her to obey and up­hold the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Re­pub­lic of T&T,” he said.

Ma­haraj said any Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, whether of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives or the Sen­ate, “if that mem­ber was per­mit­ted by the Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to vi­o­late this spe­cif­ic Con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­ce­dure - would al­so have act­ed con­trary to the oath the Mem­ber took up­on as­sum­ing of­fice to obey the Con­sti­tu­tion and laws of the coun­try.”

The Op­po­si­tion has al­so slammed the In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors for vot­ing with the Gov­ern­ment and against the mo­tion.

The UNC claimed that the In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors could not be count­ed on to be tru­ly in­de­pen­dent, as they are ap­point­ed by the Pres­i­dent. They al­so ac­cused them of singing for their sup­per.

Guardian Me­dia has been at­tempt­ing for days to con­tact the In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors on this is­sue but was met with lit­tle suc­cess.

On­ly Sen­a­tor Maria Dil­lion-Re­my re­spond­ed to Guardian on Mon­day night say­ing, “All in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors were ap­point­ed by the Pres­i­dent. How­ev­er, we do not re­port to the Pres­i­dent. The Pres­i­dent ex­pects that we will take our oath se­ri­ous­ly. I do.” She added, “I try to ex­am­ine every­thing on its mer­it and seek to do the best for my coun­try.”