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Senate Faces Procedural and Propriety Questions
posted (July 27, 2017)
Last night, you told you why the Senate Select Committee canceled yesterday's hearing at the last minute because they could not agree on whether or not they should question the Auditor General's team.

There were members on the Senate Committee who did not think it was proper to question the auditors about the reports. But there are other questions about procedure and propriety. The press asked the chairman ask about the Opposition Party's swapping back and forth between Senators Eamon Courtenay and Michel Chebat, whenever Courtenay was unable to make it for the meetings.

There are concerns about whether or not that affects the legal standing of the inquiry. The press asked the Chairman if that action could render the 8-month proceedings useless, should someone bring a civil claim against the Senate Select Committee for that...

Hon. Aldo Salazar - Chairman, Senate Select Committee
"The legality of it, I have my own opinion on it and I'm not willing to share my legal opinion on it, because there are differing views on it and I don't want to express one or the other. it's just, my position is that personally I don't feel that we should interchange senators. I have my own views, legally. Practically though I can say that it makes the process more difficult when we interchange because certain decisions have to taken every week and then different persons are not here. I'm not saying that its deliberate, it's just makes the process a little more difficult if we have to then catch up to speed and move forward with new senators. For my part when I'm unable to be here, I haven't asked that anybody else is appointed from a government side because I feel that it's not necessary. But even so despite my views about it, I haven't really put up any objection to it because really I want this business to move as smoothly as we can and we come to an end to it. There's no need to quarrel over that. We don't want them to say we try to muzzle opposition. We are not in the business of quarrelling. We have to have this settled and move forward finalize, produce the report and let the authorities deal with what they have to deal with."

Reporter
"Chairman, the quarrelling is not the issue, the issue is whether is would affect the legal standing of the proceedings here every Wednesday on an important matter and Belizeans are hoping that they get actual results out of it. However, if there is some kind of legal impact..."

Hon. Aldo Salazar
"I don't want to get into who agrees and who disagrees with it. Take it as this, the majority of the community feels that this is the way to proceed and therefore if the committee is to be impugn for that reason then it's a decision made by the majority."

In 2008 Narda Garcia, the former CEO of the Social Security Board, blocked the Senate Special Select Committee report, though it exposed serious irregularities in the SSB. The Court ruled that Garcia's right to natural justice was breached, when she was not allowed to defend herself against allegations.

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