Port-of-Spain: Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, one of the advisors to the suspended San Fernando East Member of Parliament Patrick Manning is today painting a completely different picture of Manning's attendance record before the Parliament's Committee of Privileges which eventually led to his suspension.
The Leader of Government Business in the House of Representatives, Dr Roodal Moonilal had claimed that Manning sought to frustrate the committee by not attending meetings but Hamid says this is completely untrue.
Hamid says claims that Manning failed to attend 20 meetings are entirely untrue. In fact he says, the committee only met 11 times and that Manning was only require to attend seven of them. He says Manning attended four of the seven.
Hamid says the three meetings Manning failed to attend were on January 21st, when he called to indicate he had a funeral to attend, on May 3rd because he had filed a motion in the High Court seeking legal representation and had asked the committee to delay meetings pending the court hearing and on May11th because of the late notice he had received.
Hamid says that Manning's lawyers were present at all the meetings he attended and that Manning was cooperative exchanging several documents with the committee.
He added that Manning had initially gone to the court to argue for legal representation but that the lawyers of Parliament advised him to seek the Parliament's intervention first. The Parliament refused on April 15th following a debate prompting Manning to return to court on May 3rd.
Hanid says the committee did
not agree with his wish to delay the sittings pending the court hearing and met subsequently on May 11th, where for the first time, it discussed the substantive privileges matter, being the comments that landed Manning before the committee in the first place.
On Thursday May 12th a report was prepared and on Friday May 13th it was laid in Parliament. The court was to hear Manning's matter on Tuesday May 17th but on Monday May 16th, the Parliament met to debate the matter, following which Manning was suspended.
Hamid believes there was undue haste by the government to have this matter debated, before the court could meet on it.
He says Manning cannot be held liable of attempting to frustrate the committee because the committee agreed to adjourn the sittings from time to time.
He says Manning will continue to pursue the matter in court hoping to reverse the suspension and also to establish a precedent that legal representation under the constitution should be granted to any member attending the Privileges Committee.
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