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Sent Committee Chasing After Chang
posted (February 15, 2017)

So, at the centre of this scandal about the 8 stolen visas are Former Deputy Mayor Eric Chang and Former Financial Controller for the Belize City Council, Patrick Tillett. The Senate sent them invitations to appear and defend themselves against  the allegations.

Of course, it’s not that simple for Chang, who is named in the Auditor General’s Report as the man who acted as a courier for Citizen Kim, while he was in a Taiwanese jail, back in 2013. So, no doubt, the Senate also wants to ask him a few questions about that. 

Neither of them showed up to testify today, and we asked the Senate Committee Chairman about the implications of that. Here’s our conversation with him on their absence:

Daniel Ortiz
“Has Mr. Eric Chang and Mr. Patrick Tillet indicated that they will present themselves before the Senate sir?â€￾

Hon. Aldo Salazar - Chairman, Senate Select Committee
“No they declined the invitation, I should explain that we don’t have a lot of history of Senate inquires so the convention as I understand it the practice is that you invite persons to attend. They have declined the invitation saying that after consideration they declined the invitation so they won’t be here today.â€￾

Daniel Ortiz
“Can the Senate compel these two gentlemen to present themselves before you all to answer your questions?â€￾

Hon. Aldo Salazar
“The Senate can exercise certain power, that is a particular issue that the committee is contemplating. The powers of the Senate are created in legislation which predates our constitution, those specific powers and then the constitution also speaks to certain power of the Senate. So the committee is going to determine whether it’s going to compel or to issue any further documentation to them in that regard.â€￾

Daniel Ortiz
“But is this a situation where the Senate is able to bring any sort of sanctions against them to oblige them, you don’t want to face these, present yourself.â€￾

Hon. Aldo Salazar
“I’m not aware of any sanctions. I am aware that in that document which I referred which gives the Senate certain powers, there is language in there about compelling person to attend. There’s a legal issue in relation to that which I don’t wish to discuss at this time because that is a private matter for us to consider.â€￾

“We conduct the business of the Senate in an amicable way and that is why invitations were sent out. Persons were named in the report and we invited them to come and discuss the issues in relation to which they were named. It was their choice to either agree or disagree, we didn’t tell them they had to come, it was an invitation. I think that if at the end of the day if the Senate does not have the ability - I am not saying that is the case, let’s just say that is the worst case scenario, the Senate is unable to compel them to come in a timely fashion. If there is litigation about whether what are the powers of the Senate in that regards, I’m not ruling that out. If the Senate is unable to compel them at some point then the Senate is still bound or my view is that the committee is still bound to afford everybody fairness and natural justice principles. So if the Senate is going to make a finding or is going to say something in regard to a person, I would think that it is our obligation to speak to that person before to advise them as to what the Senate is contemplating and to ask them to give them the opportunity to address us on the issue because I think that is only fair and we have to be guided by fairness. If given that opportunity, if you’re told look the Senate is considering this from the report, we’re leaning towards this view of it, can you please explain. If you refuse then you can’t complain about what the Senate has produced in its report because you had ample opportunities to address the matter.â€￾

Experienced observers have since pointed us to the Legislative Assembly Powers and Privilege Act 1962. We are told that this law makes it absolutely clear that Senate can call for any person, whether they are public officials, or private citizens. We are told that Section 10 of this act gives the power to the Senate to issue Summonses, and Section 11 allows for the upper parliament to issue warrants. 

We understand that the Senate Select Committee is going the route of the summons in the first instance, and if they decline a second time, the Committee will consider issuing a warrant. The summons will go out next week, and so they will be expected to show up at the Senate Hearings on March 1.

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