Analysts divided on PM’s ‘attack’ on Independent Bench

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts have of­fered dif­fer­ing views on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s de­ci­sion to dis­miss the po­si­tions of In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors, af­ter all nine vot­ed against the Gov­ern­ment’s Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar launched a blis­ter­ing at­tack on the In­de­pen­dent Bench fol­low­ing Thurs­day’s Sen­ate vote, de­scrib­ing the sen­a­tors as “sa­tan­ic” and ac­cus­ing them of op­pos­ing mea­sures aimed at com­bat­ing crime. She al­so de­clared that the Gov­ern­ment would no longer ac­cept amend­ments from In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors on fu­ture leg­is­la­tion.

The Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill passed on­ly af­ter a 15-15 dead­lock in the Sen­ate was bro­ken by Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark’s cast­ing vote. All 15 Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tors sup­port­ed the mea­sure, while the six Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tors and nine In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors vot­ed against it.