By Sean Douglas
June 10, 2017 – newsday.co.tt
THE Opposition last night ditched their previous qualms and hang-ups to join with Government in the House of Representatives to change the law and end child marriage in this country. By 35 votes “for”, none against and zero abstentions, the House unanimously approved the Miscellaneous Provisions (Marriage) Bill 2016.
Continue reading United House passes Marriage bill
By Stephen Kangal
June 09, 2017
The Minister of Finance had pulled out of a hat a May 22nd deadline for the submission of the illegal return forms(VRF’s) to the offices of the Valuation Division.
He had further compounded the debacle by extending it to June 5 because Cabinet decided so. Since when Cabinet has to sanction and approve a voluntary exercise that is the sole prerogative of the Commissioner of Valuations?
Continue reading Looking for the justification of the May 22/June 5 Deadlines?
By Jada Loutoo
June 07 2017 – newsday.co.tt
NOTHING stands in the way of President Anthony Carmona swearing in two new judges to the High Court.
In a unanimous decision yesterday, Justices of Appeal Allan Mendonca, Nolan Bereaux and Peter Rajkumar said they were satisfied the Judicial and Legal Services Commission (JLSC) was properly constituted. They also threw out a substantive claim of former United National Congress Senator Devant Maharaj who challenged the constitutionality of the JLSC’s composition, on the basis that the Constitution does not permit more than one retired judge to sit in the commission.
Continue reading GO AHEAD AND SWEAR
Justice Seepersad overruled again: Appeal Court makes new order
By Rickie Ramdass
June 07, 2017 – trinidadexpress.com
THE Court of Appeal has overturned another ruling of Justice Frank Seepersad, this one involving whether the State could continue to accept Property Tax valuation forms from citizens.
This morning, the Appeal Court ruled that Seepersad should not have granted an interim stay on the collection process but that the substantive matter for judicial review is still on.
Continue reading Property Tax forms can be submitted/collected
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 05, 2017
PART 3
Jasmattie live in bruk-
Down hut big like Bata shoe-box,
Beat clothes, weed yard, chop wood, feed fowl
For this body and that body and every blasted body
Fetch water, all day like if the
Whole slow-flowing Canje river God create
Just for she one bucket.David Dabydeen, “Coolie Mother”
All of us in Trinidad and Tobago were nurtured in Bruk-UP, Bruk-DOWN huts, big like a Bata shoe-box as David Dabydeen’s Guyanese example suggests. Even Eusebio Atanasio Valerio, an exemplary Amerindian ancestor, who documented his life in Sieges and Fortunes of a Trinidadian, lived in a hut in forested Arima. In Tacarigua, up until the 1960s, an Indian barracks stood at the back of the Orange Grove Sugar Estates (OG). Twelve of the first batch of Indians who came to Trinidad in 1845 were sent to OG where they joined the 265 African workers who were employed there at the time.
Continue reading Brek-UP, Brek-DOWN Society – Part 3
From: Glassie
May 23, 2017
It is human nature to feel more comfortable ‘with your own’. So, an Indian voting UNC or conversely an African voting PNM is not necessarily a sign of racialism but merely a level of comfort with your choice. But when facts are distorted to suit one’s BIASES or to satisfy existing prejudices for purely political expediency, is when the devious nature of racism takes effect.
Continue reading Distorting facts to suit one’s biases
By Raffique Shah
May 30, 2017
There was a minority view back in the 1980s/1990s when the lobby for a holiday to mark the presence of Indians in Trinidad & Tobago was loudest, that the termination of indentureship in 1917, not their arrival in 1845, should be celebrated. If that had prevailed, this year the Indo-Trinidad community would have marked the centennial of end of their semi-slavery. But the very vocal majority had their say and their day, hence the declaration of a public holiday on Arrival Day, May 30, the date when, in 1845, the Fatel Rozack docked in Port of Spain and deposited 200-odd wretched Indian souls on these shores.
Continue reading I arrived by birth
By Raffique Shah
May 23, 2017
Finance Minister Colm Imbert must shoulder much of the blame for the fiasco that a relatively simple exercise, the submission of information for the valuation of properties across the country, has degenerated into. The overwhelming response by property owners to abide by the law, hence flock the few Valuation Division offices where they could drop off their forms or get help filling them out, should have surprised no one. That the ministry was unprepared for the rush is an indictment against the minister and his senior advisors.
Continue reading Colm created tax confusion
By Stephen Kangal
June 02, 2017
Upon his return to T&T after the Chilean visit the Prime Minister made the following comment on the property tax issue:
“…On the current property tax legal battle, Rowley reiterated that his Government “will respect what goes on in the courts but I think, as PM, you’ll allow me a comment and I have my concerns.” “I find it very difficult to swallow ministers of a previous government could have managed a law in a particular way, not to the benefit of the people of TT, and when they get put out of executive authority, those same persons could see the court as their playground; to the disadvantage of the people of TT…
I stand by that comment but that dos not say that I do not respect the outcome of the courts in TT and the Government of TT, the executive, we will carry our point of view to the highest court in the land, if we have to,” Rowley stated.
Continue reading Since when the Courts are Playgrounds?