PEOPLE’S NATIONAL MOVEMENT chairman Marvin Gonzales has condemned the manner in which Opposition Leader Pennelope Beckles was sent to the Privileges Committee after she completed her three-and-a-half-hour response to the budget Friday as a “public lynching”.

He explained that no member of the Opposition was aware that any member of the House had approached the Speaker requesting leave to raise a matter of privileges on the floor of the Parliament.

He also described the situation as a “disrespect”. “This is just not a procedural flaw or irregularity; it is a scandalous disrespect for the standard orders of the Parliament of T&T and a public lynching of the Leader of the Opposition and a member of Parliament, and that should concern every citizen in T&T. It was well planned and well choreographed. They knew exactly what they were doing, and they were prepared to breach the standing orders in the Parliament of T&T to create a distraction and to publicly lynch the Leader of the Opposition,” he said.