(Trinidad Express) “Mr Patrick Augustus Mervyn Manning is accordingly suspended from the service of this House with immediate effect,” declared House Speaker Wade Mark last night.
Mark did not state for what period of time but a suspension cannot cross a session of Parliament, which is the maximum threshold for a suspension. This session ends on June 18.
A suspension is terminated either by a resolution of the House of Representatives or upon prorogation.
Manning would lose his parliamentary salary during this period. Though Manning’s prime ministerial pension would remain untouched by the suspension.
By a vote of 25 for, nine against, the House of Representatives voted to accept the findings of the Privileges Committee that Patrick Manning committed a contempt when he made allegations against Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and imposed the maximum penalty on the former prime minister. Among those absent was Manning.
In justifying the position taken by the Committee, Government leader Dr Roodal Moonilal pointed out that the Committee took an inordinate amount of time on this matter—six months—and therefore could not be accused of “rushing” to take action against Manning. He dismissed Opposition charges that the Privileges Committee had moved with indecent haste to make a contempt finding against the San Fernando East MP.
There are people in this country who believe they are untouchable, and they can commit a wrong and no one dares to touch them. But they on this side, anybody on that side could touch them,” he said.
He said the message the Parliament was sending was that: “No one on your side and on this side is above the law. And the recent evidence suggests that no one in the Government is above the law and no one in the Opposition must be above the law as well,” he said.
Responding to Imbert’s claims that Manning was not given sufficient notice that there was meeting of the Privileges Committee on Friday at which the Committee is planning to make a finding against him, Moonilal said the Committee “begged” Manning throughout the six-month period to attend its meetings. “What did you want us to do, put up a neon sign by Sumadh Gardens?” he asked.
Moonilal said he laboriously detailed the numerous occasions on which the Committee stopped its work, adjourned its meetings to accommodate Manning. He said listening to the arguments of the Opposition he had to come to the conclusion it may well be that it is not only the San Fernando East MP who is trying to frustrate the work of the House.
On Imbert’s statement that the Prime Minister, the complainant in the matter, should have been interviewed by the Committee, Moonilal said nowhere in the bundle of 500 pages of the Report and the verbatim notes of the Committee’s meetings did Imbert and others ask that Persad-Bissessar be interviewed. Why would the Parliament examine the person against whom allegations are made, rather than the person making the allegations. “He who alleges must prove,” he said, adding that that is the system.
Furthermore, Moonilal said, the Opposition MPs deliberately decided to absent themselves from the two final meetings—last Wednesday and Friday. He said Opposition MP Patricia McIntosh was the only person to attend Friday’s meeting.
Moonilal said he was certain that Manning would not be pursuing the matter in court because he would not want to pay costs for Russell Martineau SC and Deborah Peake SC.
