The first matter of business for proposed new Opposition Senator Caswell Franklyn will be to get those last-minute appointments and concessions reversed.
And he says the law is on the side of Parliament.
In his usual forthright and outspoken manner, Franklyn, who will be sworn in tomorrow, said he shouldn’t even have to raise it in the Senate; it should be done even before he takes his seat there.
Franklyn was speaking yesterday after Opposition Leader Bishop Joseph Atherley made the announcement that he would be one of two Opposition senators. Atherley has not yet named his second senator.
Franklyn immediately signalled his intention to attack those last-minute appointments.
“I wish to tell you now, if there is nothing else I do in Parliament, it will be to try to reverse those, or at least some of them,” he declared.
Franklyn said the law allowed Parliament to annul such acts within a 40-day period after they had been laid in Parliament.
He called the acts “bordering on misfeasance of public office” and said he expected Prime Minister Mia Mottley to investigate them, “even if it requires a judicial inquiry”.
“The Prime Minister, as Minister of Finance, has no option but to lay them in Parliament. And once they are laid, either House can resolve to annul,” Franklyn said. (HLE)
