Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee

Just three days before the National Assembly’s Privileges Committee was due to meet next Monday to consider the fate of Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee, he has resigned from the disciplinary body. 

The state-run Government Information Agency (GINA) reported that Minister of Legal Affairs and Attorney General (AG), Anil Nandlall has dispatched a letter to the Clerk of the National Assembly Sherlock Isaacs, in which he called for the meeting of the Committee of Privileges to be ‘aborted permanently’ or be ‘adjourned indefinitely’. 

He said that he is “impelled to the view that a decision now for the Privileges Committee to consider the issues slated for consideration is one which is designed to circumvent, ignore and disregard the pronouncements of the Honourable Chief Justice, and one that is contaminated with ulterior motives”, hence the call for the meeting to be aborted.

The letter states that Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee has resigned from the Parliamentary Privileges Committee, following advice from AG Nandlall. 

Announcement of Rohee’s resignation came three days after House Speaker Raphael Trotman had said that the Privileges Committee would have met on January 21 to examine whether the minister violated any of the parliamentary standing orders or regulations; if the National Assembly has the power to sanction a minister for failing to resign following a motion of no confidence and what sanctions are available to the House if the answer to the first two issues are yes. 

Chief Justice (ag) Ian Chang recently ruled that Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee has a right to speak in the National Assembly as an elected member, but the Speaker has in effect stymied this order. 

“The Honourable Speaker has indicated at a press conference that he intends to appeal the Court’s ruling.  I also, intend to cross-appeal.  In short, from every conceivable perspective, the legal proceedings are far from conclusion and indeed are pending.  No reason has been furnished by the Honourable Speaker for abnegating from his previously held aforesaid position,” the AG stated in the letter. 

“I am of the considered view that the process which is scheduled to be embarked upon, and indeed its eventual outcome, will be infected with the fatal virus of bias and accordingly, will be violative of the rules of natural justice, will be unlawful, null void and of no effect.” 

The letter further states that a meeting of the Committee of Selection should be summoned to consider a replacement for Minister Rohee for the Committee of Privileges in respect of the matters at hand. 

AG Nandlall further noted in his letter that despite numerous public utterances on the issue from both the Speaker and the Parliamentary Opposition, he has yet to hear any clear and definitive statement which would tend to suggest that the parliamentary opposition is prepared to comply with the clear and unambiguous pronouncements of the Chief Justice in relation to Minister Rohee’s right to speak in the National Assembly. This is explained in the letter. 

 “The Chief Justice ruled that Constitution confers an undoubted right upon every elected member of the National Assembly to speak on any matter in the National Assembly.  In his own words, the Learned Chief Justice at page 27 stated, “it is the view of this court that Mr. Rohee’s right to speak in the National Assembly derives from his office as a member of the National Assembly and not from his office as an executive Minister.  Thus, his right as an elected member of the National Assembly must be concomitant with his constitutional duty to speak for and to represent his electors in the National Assembly who, in turn, have a concomitant right to be so represented.”  

As regards the No Confidence Motion passed by the Opposition, the Learned Chief Justice ruled at page 23 to 24 of the Judgment that,  “the issue in this matter is not at all whether the National Assembly has confidence in Mr. Rohee as Minister of Home Affairs but rather is whether the Speaker has acted (and may further act) unconstitutionally or illegally in prohibiting him from speaking or making presentations in the National Assembly for reason of that expression of no confidence.  Assuming for the purpose of analysis that Mr. Rohee was not an executive Minister, but was the holder of a seat in the National Assembly (like all Opposition members of the National Assembly), would his office of Minster render him more vulnerable to a prohibition against speaking than those members of the National Assembly who had no such Ministerial office?  It is indeed difficult to see how such a question can be answered in the affirmative.  It is indeed difficult to see how, in the face of the doctrine of separation of powers, the Speaker can prohibit a member (particularly an elected member) from speaking or making a presentation in that Assembly on account of the absence of confidence of the majority of the members of the Assembly in that person qua an executive Minister when he sits in the Assembly not qua Minister of the Government but qua member of the National Assembly.” 

And at page 32, the Chief Justice stated “it behoves the Speaker and indeed the National Assembly as a whole to respect not only the finding of the court for reason of its finality, but also the constitutional right of Mr. Rohee to represent his electors and their constitutional right to be represented by him in the National Assembly.”

The aforesaid constitute clear pronouncements on matters of law by a Court of Law which, as the Chief Justice opined in his written judgment, “only the Court can speak with finality on a legal question or issue.”