T&T Government, Opposition square off over parliamentary committees

The government of Trinidad and Tobago and the opposition are squaring off over the live broadcast of proceedings of Parliament's Joint Select Committees (JSC) with the government saying such broadcasts are in breach of Standing Orders.

Opposition sources have said the opposition does not support a blackout of such important matters. But Senate Leader Conrad Enill, who sits on two of the three JSC's, denies that government is trying to block any live broadcast of prevent media from covering the proceedings.

"There is a conflict in the Standing Orders and that has to be resolved. I do not want to be accused of violating the Standing Orders. I personally have no problem with the live broadcast...If the Standing Orders do not permit the broadcast, we will move to change the Standing Orders at the earliest possible opportunity," he told the Express newspaper.

Enill said Standing Order 81 states that the "proceedings of and the evidence taken before any Select Committee, or documents presented to and decisions of any Committee shall not be published by any member or any other person before the Committee has presented its Report to the House."

He explained that The Standing Order also says that the proceedings and report of the Committee "cannot be debated before it is brought to the full House, and that prevents anyone from talking about the deliberations of a Committee before the Report is brought to the Parliament."

But Parliamentary sources say while Standing Order 81 refers to the premature publication of evidence taken in camera that could be changed if members pass a resolution. If proceedings are open to the public there is no restriction on the publication of evidence. In effect one part of the Standing Order cancels out the other.

Opposition sources say the Standing Order issue can be easily resolved but the matter is bigger than that. They say it is a continuation of government's hostility to the media and desire to suppress information.

They say if Enill is taken at his word and has no opposition to the live broadcast of proceedings, then members could easily pass a resolution to broadcast proceedings live and end the matter.

But they point out that Enill is not a big media fan. He is on record as saying that "no where in the world is news reporting as bad as here in T&T."

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The legislation creating the JSC was passed in 2000 under the UNC government and since then the convention has been to open all JSC meetings to the media.

Since live broadcasts began in 2004 under the Manning administration all Parliamentary meetings have been broadcast live on the parliamentary channel, which is available worldwide on the Internet.

Opposition Senate Leader Wade Mark, who is a member of all three JSCs, dismissed Government's explanation.

"This Government has taken a decision to institute a complete blackout of all the Committees of Parliament," Mark charged. He said the government didn't even want the committees and tried to reduce them from three to two, a move that was defeated in the Senate.

Mark said it then took nearly a year to establish the committees, which he said was a violation of the constitution.

The JSL's were appointed on October 24 and met for the first time last Tuesday. Mark predicted that the Government's next step would be to amend the quorum to frustrate the committees.

"They could claim that they don't have time to attend Committee meetings and without their attendance, a quorum of seven is difficult to muster and the Committees would therefore not be able to function", he said.

Mark also knocked the government for changing the way the committees are chaired. Currently the deputy speaker, who is a PNM MP, chairs all three. In previous Parliaments that was the role of an independent Senator.