Did the House Sit or What?
The 18-18 tie is making us raise all sorts of questions that ordinarily we would have taken for granted, and one of the latest is, Was the meeting of the house of representatives on April 5 a sitting or a non-sitting? The question arises because when the house met, it attempted to elect a speaker but failed. Among the persons raising the question are lawyers, and some of them hold that the meeting was a sitting while others hold that it was not. Those who hold that it was think that another meeting can be held to try again to elect a speaker, and those who hold that it was not think that there is no other recourse - some of them say not even prorogation - but to hold fresh a general election. I hold that it was a sitting.
I do so on at least three grounds. One is that the house met after a general election in accordance with sections 50 and 67 of the constitution and conducted business. A second is that to meet and conduct business is to sit. And a third is that the non-election of a speaker is tantamount to the office of speaker being vacant and therefore fillable through another election in the house.
When the house met on April 5, 2002 after the last general election of December 10, 2001, it was doing so within six months of the last sitting of parliament, which took place on October 13, 2001. Section 67(2) of the constitution requires that there be a session of each house at least once in every year and that a period of six months not 'intervene' between the last sitting of parliament in one session and the first sitting in the next session. At April 5, 2002, 173 days (or 5.8 months, counting a month as 30 days) had intervened between the two sittings of the house. The house had therefore met constitutionally.
But does the fact that it met necessarily mean that it sat, that is, had a sitting? One view is, as we have seen, that it met, conducted business but did not sit, while another is that by meeting and conducting business it sat. That it met is not in doubt. Pat Manning and his other PNM parliamentarians were there in the house, and so were Bas Panday and his UNC parliamentarians. Jacqui Sampson, clerk of the house, was also there and held the chair as returning officer. The media cameras and tape recorders, members of the public in the gallery, and Hansard are witnesses to the fact. The record will show that the house convened and voted for speaker after speaker to no successful effect.
The view that the house met but did not sit since it did not elect a speaker implies that in order for a meeting to be taken as having sat its business must have been successful, that is, determined by some majority vote. So that if the 12-member board of the Cooperative Credit Union League of Trinidad and Tobago met after an annual general meeting only to elect a president, with a cooperative officer as returning officer, and 6 members voted (repeatedly) for one of two candidates proposed and the other six voted (also repeatedly) for the other candidate, and the meeting closed on a stalemate, then the meeting would not have been a sitting, though, unambiguously as well as presumptively, it would have been a meeting.
To construe the notion of 'sitting' in that way is to appeal to factors that are neither part of the conventional meaning of the term nor part of any specification of terminology in the constitution. Which is to say, it is to be excessive and, on account of that, possibly absurd. A group can meet on a matter and be undecided on it at the end; it does not mean that it did not sit on the matter; it may meet again or take some other course of action, like holding a general election or (special) general meeting, depending on the kind of group it is. Manning may therefore have parliament reconvened for another attempt at election of a parliament or he may call a fresh general election in hopes that his party will win a majority - the condition that will facilitate the election of a speaker.
The reconvention of parliament is not a course of action that proceeds only as a logical result of the non-election of a speaker at the first meeting (or sitting!) of parliament. It may alternatively proceed from a construction of section 50 of the constitution, especially subsection (1), as meaning that the non-election of a speaker at the first sitting effectively means that the office is vacant and, therefore, can be filled 'as soon as practicable'. There is no good reason to limit the notion of 'practicability' to a state of affairs where a speaker is elected at the first meeting of the house and then vacates the office for whatever reason. If it is practicable to elect a speaker at a meeting that succeeds a meeting where s/he was not elected, then the option can/should be invoked.
To emphasise the second ground, to meet and conduct business is to sit. The intent of Section 50 is not to hold a general election if the first sitting of parliament fails to elect a speaker. Rather, it is to forbid any activity of parliament in the absence of a speaker (or a deputy speaker).
We all know that parliament is not functioning as there is no speaker!
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