Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley led a walkout of his ten MPs from Parliament after he wound up his motion of no confidence against the Prime Minister and the Government shortly after 5.30 pm yesterday. Hours later, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar moved to have him referred to the Committee of Privileges for contempt of Parliament. In his ruling, Speaker Wade Mark said a prima facie case had been made out against Rowley and he was referred to the committee for investigation and report.
Persad-Bissessar said Rowley committed contempt by words uttered in his presentation of the motion on Monday when he presented 31 e-mail messages sent to and from addresses purported to be those of Persad-Bissessar, Attorney General Anand Ramlogan and other cabinet ministers in September last year, when news broke about the proclamation of Section 34 of the Administration of Justice (Indictable Proceedings) Act 2011.
The legislation was repealed in September after the T&T Guardian reported exclusively that it would allow two former financiers of the United National Congress to walk free in a matter before the court. The e-mails also referred to alleged moves to tap the phone of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and to interfere with Denyse Renne, the T&T Guardian reporter who broke the story.
Persad-Bissessar and Ramlogan led a charge of PP members, labelling the e-mails as fraudulent and a fabrication, but the PM immediately wrote to acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams asking that he investigate the matter. On Tuesday, Williams said Deputy Commissioner Mervyn Richardson would carry out that probe.
Mark, in his ruling, said it was “not my task to hold an inquiry into this matter. All I am required to do is consider whether the submissions of the Honourable Prime Minister point to a reasonable possibility that contempt has occurred.” Mark said he could not “express a concluded view on these matters—that is for your Committee of Privileges to do, after a full consideration and investigation of this issue. I so rule.”
The Speaker said he repeatedly told MPs that “the conferring of privileges and immunities on this House and its members inevitably involves the imposition of corresponding responsibilities. I have also advised that freedom of speech is not an exemption to account to the House itself.”
Earlier, in an impromptu interview with reporters, Rowley said the motion, which questioned the conduct of the Prime Minister, required her to contribute to the debate. He said in this debate, however, Persad-Bissessar chose “not to enter the debate, and when the debate is wound up by me, as I just did, now she is going to lecture to us at her pleasure, and we now have no opportunity to take issue with anything she is saying.”
In explaining the Opposition’s walkout, he said: “We don’t have the time to stay to be lectured to.” Rowley said when the Government rushed to repeal the controversial Section 34 of the Administration of Justice Act 2011, in September last year, “The Prime Minister did a very odd thing. She, as head of the Government, never took part in the debate.” He said the walkout was a protest against Persad-Bissessar’s “unwillingness to allow her statement to be examined by us in the Parliament. We gave her the chamber to talk to herself.”
And Opposition whip Marlene McDonald, who also spoke with reporters after the walkout, said Persad-Bissessar had a habit of always wanting to have the last word in motions of no confidence against her. “She wants what she has to say to remain unchallenged in the Parliament, and we could not allow that to happen,” Mc Donald said. She said the debate was important and Persad-Bissessar “should have seen it as important to join this debate and be scrutinised.”
She said it was “on that basis of principle that we walked out.” The Opposition walkout came after Rowley insisted in his winding-up that the Opposition would accept nothing less than an independent investigation into the alleged e-mails, noting that the police investigation into the matter being carried out by Deputy Commissioner of Police Richardson was not acceptable.
“This Opposition will settle for nothing less than an independent investigation of people (including international experts),” Rowley said. He said what the country could not countenance was “people who are supposed to be the targets of the allegation taking the position that they are innocent. That’s unacceptable.” Science and Technology Minister Dr Rupert Griffith asked Rowley at that point when he would be resigning. Rowley said he did not resign “when I have done my job well.”
Rowley quoted a document from http/askmettaflex.com to show that “it is possible to have two distinct e-mail servers for two sets of non-overlapping addresses for the same domain.” Before 2005, he said, Gmail had e-mail usernames with fewer than six characters, and although that changed in 2005, such addresses which existed before that year still existed and were operational. New Gmail accounts, he said, could not operate with usernames with fewer than six characters.
“This matter is extremely technical, it is very specific,” he said, “and I know the country can only be well served if the proper investigators are asked to investigate this.” Rowley said when he first received the e-mails he asked, “What is this?” He said his temperature dropped and his blood curdled. He insisted he did not act irresponsibly in the matter.