There has been at least one in­stance with­in re­cent times that an In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor, ap­point­ed by the out­go­ing pres­i­dent, re­signed to al­low the in­com­ing head of state to re­place him. It was a per­son­al de­ci­sion of Dr Dhanayshar Ma­habir in 2018 to step down when Jus­tice Paula-Mae Weeks was elect­ed as Pres­i­dent.

As point­ed out in this news­pa­per, there is no con­sti­tu­tion­al re­quire­ment for In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors to leave their seats on the elec­tion of a new Pres­i­dent.

The present call by at least two Op­po­si­tion Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment for the cur­rent team of In­de­pen­dents to re­sign from the Sen­ate is lodged in the pol­i­tics.

It is not that there has not been the play­ing-out of par­ty con­flict in the Up­per cham­ber, with usu­al­ly whichev­er par­ty is then in op­po­si­tion com­plain­ing about In­de­pen­dents vot­ing with the gov­ern­ment on bills and oth­er mat­ters. How­ev­er, this de­mand by Op­po­si­tion mem­bers for the In­de­pen­dents to re­sign as a group to al­low new Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo to make her own se­lec­tion is of an­oth­er kind.

When the Up­per House was ini­ti­at­ed by then-prime min­is­ter, Dr Er­ic Williams, and with the es­tab­lish­ment of the In­de­pen­dent bench, the in­ten­tion was to al­low voic­es sep­a­rate from the po­lit­i­cal par­ties to be heard in the new bi­cam­er­al leg­is­la­ture. There was no in­ten­tion of the In­de­pen­dents to con­sis­tent­ly vote with ei­ther side of the Up­per House; if their in­di­vid­ual views co­in­cid­ed with gov­ern­ment or op­po­si­tion, then so should their votes be cast.

Over the decades since then, In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors have vot­ed with and against whichev­er gov­ern­ment was in pow­er on bills of na­tion­al in­ter­est. The prac­tice has al­so sprung up that on crit­i­cal pro­posed leg­is­la­tion, both gov­ern­ment and op­po­si­tion have sought to per­suade, in a quite le­git­i­mate and above-board man­ner, In­de­pen­dents of the va­lid­i­ty of their po­si­tion on the pro­posed laws.

One ques­tion to be asked is on what ba­sis are the Op­po­si­tion MPs Rudranath In­dars­ingh and Bar­ry Padarath now de­mand­ing the In­de­pen­dents ap­point­ed by a pre­vi­ous pres­i­dent to re­sign their po­si­tions in the Sen­ate; more so when there is no con­sti­tu­tion­al re­quire­ment for them to do so?

This is sure­ly an at­tempt to get back at the present group of In­de­pen­dents who may have vot­ed with the Gov­ern­ment on par­tic­u­lar pieces of leg­is­la­tion, as is their right to do.

More­over, if the In­de­pen­dents were to re­sign on the bid­ding of the Op­po­si­tion, where will this pow­er to have such sen­a­tors ex­it of­fice stop? Will the Op­po­si­tion then be em­pow­ered by prac­tice to de­ter­mine who should be the choic­es of the Pres­i­dent to place on the In­de­pen­dent bench­es?

The fact is hav­ing made ap­point­ments to the Sen­ate, not even the Pres­i­dent can dic­tate to the sen­a­tors on how they should vote. And sure­ly, the con­sti­tu­tion­al ap­point­ments of the In­de­pen­dents do not make them “be­hold­en” to the for­mer pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate, now Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic.

It is cer­tain­ly with­in the pow­er of the Op­po­si­tion to place be­fore the Par­lia­ment and on the hus­tings a draft which ad­vo­cates con­sti­tu­tion­al change to de­ter­mine how and when the In­de­pen­dent bench should be changed; bul­ly­ing will not, how­ev­er, do.