Snatching of Speaker’s Mace: Court has no say in Privileges Committee decision to suspend APNU/AFC MPs – AG

…Parliament has exclusive jurisdiction to discipline members

The recent recommendation by the parliamentary Privileges Committee for eight A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) parliamentarians to be suspended has been met with reports that a legal challenge would be mounted.

However, Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister Anil Nandlall, SC, has said that in such a case there would be no right of appeal for the appellants to approach the courts over a decision that was made in the confines of the National Assembly. According to him, in such a case the courts have no jurisdiction.
The decision of the Privileges Committee was one of the examples that Nandlall used, during his oral submissions in the consolidated case of AG v Monica Thomas, Brennan Nurse and 12 others, and Bharrat Jagdeo v Thomas, Nurse and 12 others that is before the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).
“(Article) 133 of our Constitution, the drafters recognise the very principle I’m referring to. By exempting from the operation of that article, matters that fall under Article 163 where an appeal to the Court of Appeal shall lie as a right from decisions of the High Court in the following cases. And they list the cases,” Nandlall said.
“Final decision in criminal proceedings and questions as to the interpretation of the Constitution, one can very well argue that this case involves an interpretation of an article of the Constitution. Article 133 (2) says very clearly that nothing in paragraph 1 shall apply to matters in which provision is made by Article 163. And that is in keeping with the policy of the statutory code.”
According to Nandlall, the Court of Appeal Act cannot be invoked in a case whereby the Constitution only grants jurisdiction to the court to hear cases that were decided on their merits, in the same way the Constitution does not grant the court jurisdiction to hear a case where Parliament has the exclusive jurisdiction to act.
“Our National Assembly, quite recently, heard a privileges motion and made a determination thereof. Now that is not a jurisdiction that Parliament handed to the court. Parliament kept that jurisdiction.”
“And Parliament, in the exercise of that jurisdiction, made a pronouncement via that Privileges Committee. It is unthinkable for one to suggest that the Court of Appeal Act can be invoked to file an appeal against a decision of that Privileges Committee,” Nandlall also said.

Suspension
Last week, the parliamentary Committee of Privileges has recommended the suspension of eight APNU/AFC Members of Parliament (MPs) who participated in the infamous Mace grab and disruptions of the National Assembly sitting on December 29, 2021.
The Committee was tasked with considering a privileges motion which stated that the eight Opposition MPs attempted to prevent the second and third readings of the Natural Resource Fund Bill No 20 of 2021, conducted themselves in a gross, disorderly, contumacious, and disrespectful manner, and repeatedly ignored the authority of the Assembly and that of the Speaker, thereby committing contempt and breaches of privileges.
The eight MPs in question are: Opposition Chief Whip Christopher Jones, Ganesh Mahipaul, Sherod Duncan, Natasha Singh-Lewis, Annette Ferguson, Vinceroy Jordan, Tabitha Sarabo-Halley, and Maureen Philadelphia.
After seeking an extension to its one-month timeline to consider the violations committed by the members, the Committee finally completed the report and submitted it to be laid in the National Assembly for debate. The next sitting is slated for Thursday, July 21.
According to the report, the Committee’s findings were based on video recordings, statements by staff of the Parliament Office and the Arthur Chung Conference Centre, eyewitness accounts by other Members of the House, media reporters, and the public, both locally and internationally.
Additionally, each Opposition Member was written to and asked to “show cause” why sanctions should not be meted out to them. Their responses were received and considered by the Committee.
To this end, the Committee determined the appropriate sanction available for the National Assembly to impose is suspension from service in the House. As a result, the Privileges Committee recommended that MPs Jones, Mahipaul, Duncan and Singh-Lewis be suspended for four consecutive sittings each.
Recommendation was also made for MPs Ferguson and Jordan to be suspended for six consecutive sittings each. Meanwhile, a similar recommendation of suspension for six consecutive sittings was made against MP Sarabo-Halley.
In addition, MP Philadelphia is also facing a suspension recommendation for six consecutive sittings over her severe and egregious violations, whereby she “verbally assaulted a staff of the Parliament Office within the precincts of the National Assembly”. (G3)