Attempts by the Opposition as well as Independent Senator Anthony Vieira to bring Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar before the Committee of Privileges were shut down by Senate President Wade Mark yesterday.

Mark ruled that having carefully studied two correspondences received from Leader of the Opposition bench in the Senate Dr Amery Browne and Vieira, seeking to raise two matters of privilege, he was “convinced that neither of the two submissions meets the threshold to be raised as a matter of privilege”.

The Matters of Privilege arose from Persad-Bissessar’s statements last month that Independent Senators were “brown nosers and bootlickers”, and had been appointed by a President who was a “low level PNM functionary”.