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Monday, February 24, 2025

THA Presiding Officer reviews Duke's vacancy declaration request

by

Chester Sambrano
808 days ago
20221208
THA Presiding Officer Abby Taylor

THA Presiding Officer Abby Taylor

THA

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Presiding Of­fi­cer Ab­by Tay­lor has con­firmed re­ceipt of Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots leader Wat­son Duke’s let­ter call­ing on her to de­clare the 13 seats of his for­mer col­leagues va­cant af­ter they re­signed from the par­ty.

Late last evening, how­ev­er, Tay­lor told Guardian Me­dia she is “still re­view­ing the con­tents.”

Mean­while, for­mer Chief Sec­re­tary Ho­choy Charles has made it clear that Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine and his ex­ec­u­tive have done “noth­ing il­le­gal or im­prop­er” by re­sign­ing from the PDP and re­main­ing in­de­pen­dent in the THA.

Charles made the de­c­la­ra­tion on Tues­day night in a video post­ed to YouTube, where he sought to clear the air on what some are call­ing a con­sti­tu­tion­al dilem­ma af­ter Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine and 12 oth­er PDP mem­bers quit the par­ty.

Apart from Au­gus­tine, Faith B Yis­rael, Ter­rence Baynes, Tasha Bur­ris, Natisha Charles-Pan­tin, Wane Clarke, Son­ny Craig, Naill George, Zor­isha Hack­ett, Trevor James, Or­nal­do Kerr, Megan Mor­ri­son, Ian Pol­lard, Joel Samp­son, Nigel Taitt and Cer­ti­ca Williams-Orr an­nounced they had quit the PDP ear­li­er this week.

It has been ar­gued by Duke that since the THA Act is silent on the is­sue of cross­ing the floor, con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly, the Stand­ing Or­ders for the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, as it ap­plies to the Cross­ing the Floor Act, should be ap­plied.

How­ev­er, Charles dis­agreed.

“In Trinidad in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, I read it here for you, Sec­tion 49 sub­sec­tion (2) (e) of the Con­sti­tu­tion says if you con­test an elec­tion on a par­ty tick­et and you are fired from that par­ty or you re­sign from that par­ty, your seat in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives be­comes va­cant and once it be­comes va­cant there is go­ing to be an elec­tion with­in 90 days to fill that va­can­cy. It hap­pened to Jack Warn­er in Ch­agua­nas. That does not ap­ply to the THA, it is not that crea­ture,” he said.

Com­ment­ing on the is­sue ear­li­er this week, At­tor­ney Mar­tin George sug­gest­ed that “on­ly a ju­di­cial de­ter­mi­na­tion and rul­ing on this mat­ter will put this to rest at this time once and for all.”

But Charles does not see the need.

“Any­body can put up a le­gal chal­lenge but you are not go­ing to be suc­cess­ful,” he said.

Charles, one of the ar­chi­tects of the THA Act, al­so ex­plained that it does not recog­nise par­ty and there is no oth­er rep­re­sen­ta­tive in­sti­tu­tion like the THA any­where in the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic world.

“So, we are look­ing at the THA and think that it is a fowl when done is a rab­bit,” he added.

He al­so put to bed the no­tion that there needs to be an elec­tion called be­cause of the de­vel­op­ment.

“There is no elec­tion,” he said.

Charles’ sen­ti­ments were echoed by Avory Sinanan, SC.

“I do not hold the view that the Cross­ing the Floor Act can ap­ply by im­pli­ca­tion as had been sug­gest­ed by an­oth­er com­men­ta­tor,” he said.

Sinanan ex­plained that his analy­sis comes “be­cause such a dra­con­ian step re­quires spe­cif­ic pro­vi­sions in ei­ther leg­is­la­tion or reg­u­la­tions … it can­not ap­ply by im­pli­ca­tion.”

Promi­nent at­tor­ney Justin Phelps held a sim­i­lar view.

He said, “The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Act con­tains no pro­vi­sion which re­quires an elec­tion. The courts, in ac­cor­dance with Sec­tion 4 of the Act, will not in­ter­pret it in such a man­ner as to au­tho­rise any­thing in­con­sis­tent with the Con­sti­tu­tion. That means in­con­sis­tent with the let­ter and spir­it of the Con­sti­tu­tion,” he said.

Phelps said there can be noth­ing more in­con­sis­tent with the Con­sti­tu­tion than try­ing to “un-elect” the elect­ed As­sem­bly.

He ex­plained that it would over­turn the man­date giv­en to Au­gus­tine and his team by the peo­ple of To­ba­go.

“The man­date of the peo­ple is the most in­flu­en­tial con­cept in de­mo­c­ra­t­ic pol­i­tics and that man­date can­not have been dis­turbed by the res­ig­na­tions from the PDP. Looked at in those terms, I can­not see any le­gal or po­lit­i­cal rea­son for an elec­tion,” he said.

Al­so adding his voice to the de­bate was Mar­tin Daly, SC.

“The re­port­ed ma­jor­i­ty sup­port for Far­ley Au­gus­tine makes it un­like­ly there will be a sig­nif­i­cant ef­fect on the sta­tus of the House of As­sem­bly,” he said.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour, SC, was al­so con­tact­ed on the is­sue and asked if the mat­ter was be­ing mon­i­tored by his of­fice.

How­ev­er, he of­fered “No com­ment.”

On Tues­day, con­sti­tu­tion­al ex­pert Dr Hamid Ghany told Guardian Me­dia that the THA busi­ness will not be af­fect­ed by the res­ig­na­tions and their de­ci­sion to op­er­ate as in­de­pen­dents.

“There are no cross­ing-the-floor pro­vi­sions in the THA Act, un­like the na­tion­al Par­lia­ment. There are no le­gal reper­cus­sions for res­ig­na­tion from a po­lit­i­cal par­ty in the THA,” Ghany said.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath al­so said here is no le­gal is­sue.

“There’s no con­sti­tu­tion­al le­gal dilem­ma that is ex­ist­ing in the THA at this point,” he said.


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