P.M. maintains precedent allows Eamon Courtenay to continue as Leader of Government Business without ministerial portfolio

By Aaron Humes: Lead Opposition Senator Michael Peyrefitte has said he intends to make an issue of Senator Eamon Courtenay serving as Leader of Government Business at next week’s Senate meeting, writing to President Carolyn Trench-Sandiford citing Senate Standing Orders 21 (3) and 22 that require that certain legislation be moved only by a Minister of the Government.

On Wednesday during an interview, Peyrefitte told reporters, “Now, I don’t care if it was done a thousand times before the wrong way, bad precedents don’t make good law. It doesn’t matter by whom it was done. I am saying we are here now, in the present now in the Senate now and certain things cannot move without a minister…On that day if they still decide to proceed, I will put this to the president and whatever the president rules she rules. She rules that no, let’s proceed, then we proceed, then the UDP reserves its options and rights. It is something they did not think about, it is something in their haste to move and act, whatever inspired them to act this way to leave us in a situation that we have no minister in the Senate and certain government business can only be moveD by a minister. I don’t care how it was done before, if it was wrong or treated as right before. The fact of the matter is that this is not correct in my view, and I think what the prime minister needs to do is put a minister in the Senate.”

But what if the precedent was set by the UDP, Prime Minister John Briceno responded on Friday? This is what he told reporters: “If he [Peyrefitte] were to look back in history, it was the United Democratic Party government that had Fred Martinez as the Leader of Government Business in the Senate and also having him attend Cabinet meetings for that very same reason. In our instance, it’s slightly different in that we maintain Senator Courtenay, maybe he’s afraid to debate Senator Courtenay and wants him to get out of the Senate but Senator Courtenay has the confidence of our government and is prepared to continue to serve our government as Leader of Government Business and so there’s nothing much more to it.”

The late Alfredo Martinez, better known as a diplomat and Ambassador to Guatemala, was a Senator from 1984 to 1989 under the United Democratic Party government of Sir Manuel Esquivel, and again from 1997 to 1998 when he was appointed Minister of Trade and Industry.

The Constitution has no direct mention of the title ‘Leader of Government Business’ in relation to the Senate, and the Standing Orders themselves only mention the term once. Six Senators are appointed by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, and three on the recommendation of the Leader of the Opposition; in practice, the Senator thought to command the support of his grouping as leader leads that grouping in the Upper House.

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