Deosaran: It’s like a landlord seeking to evict a tenant

Independent Senator Professor Ramesh Deosaran yesterday accused Government of “moving like a landlord to evict a tenant,” on the matter involving the relocation of the Parliament.

Speaking to Newsday, Deosaran called for “warmer collaboration” between the Executive via the Minister of Public Administration, “who ironically is also the Leader of Government Business in the Senate,” and the Parliament, meaning the House Committee. Saying that the procedure being used in this matter was flawed, Deosaran stated: “Government cannot violate with such arbitrariness the country’s legislature, moving like a landlord who evicts a tenant.” Even when a tenant is ejected by a landlord, he can appeal under the law, the Independent Senator noted.

Deosaran stressed that he supported the idea of a new and bigger Parliament building to accomodate technology, the staff, and the more expanded committee system envisaged under Section 66 of the Constitution. But he was dead against the idea of  Government “dumping” that “mammoth structure,” in the space being contemplated — the block in Port-of-Spain bounded by the Police Headquarters’ Temple Court, National Lotteries Control Board and the Magistrates Courts. He said this proposal would aggravate the existing congestion in Port-of-Spain, with the repercussions ranging from serious to very severe. Saying that people would be unwilling or  unable to travel to the city, Deosaran stated that it would also increase the opportunity for deviants of all types, “which means more police, more regiment, more searches, and more frequent closures of those streets in the vicinity of the Parliament. “You are aggravating the temper of the city,” he said, adding that this was “flawed urban planning,” no matter what a committee (Port-of-Spain Redevelopment City Project) said ten years ago. Deosaran said he was surprised that well-intentioned interest groups like DOMA and the Chamber of Commerce did not see the potential risks of the plan, especially since “it will not be good for business.”

Deosaran also pointed out that in countries all over the world, where a decision was taken to move the Parliament, it was relocated to very spacious surroundings. In Florida, for example, the Legislature is in Talahassie, not Miami. He added that in Europe government bureaucracies were being shifted closer to the people. This was why, he said, he suggested Caroni as a site for the new Parliament, “because in terms of access, space and the aesthetics of a national building, it was more suitable, along with the symbolic reason of national unification.” The Government has taken a decision that Parliament must be relocated from the Red House, which is to be renovated to house the Office of the Prime Minister. It has also decided that while the Red House is  being renovated the Parliament should get out and move into a temporary accomodation, pending the construction of a new Parliament building. In the process of all these relocations, the Judiciary would also have to be inconvenienced as the building housing the Magistrates’ Courts would be taken for the new Parliament. Deosaran stated that in a democracy, where the separation of powers between the Executive, Judiciary and Legislature were involved, the ultimate decision was just as crucial as the process used. And he stressed that whole process used in this matter — involving the relocation of Parliament — was terribly flawed.