Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday last evening accepted a new invitation from Prime Minister Patrick Manning for consultations on an issue dealing with crime next week.

’Well, on the suggestion of the prime minister and myself, the chief whip and the leader of Government business will meet, will arrange when they will meet and their teams and so on,’ Panday said after last night’s sitting of Parliament at the Red House, Port of Spain.

The subject of next week’s talks will be the Evidence (Amendment) Bill, which seeks to make provision for the admissibility of video or audio recordings of voluntary statements of prosecution and defence witnesses, including the accused, and to abolish common-law rules governing the admissibility of bad evidence.

Panday’s comment came after Works and Transport Minister and Leader of Government Business Colm Imbert, the leader of Government business, had earlier announced in Parliament that ’a team from the Government will meet a team from the Opposition’ either next Tuesday or Wednesday, ’to see if we can agree on ways and means of strengthening the legislation’.

Panday had also met with Manning to discuss crime and constitutional reform on November 3 at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann’s. They had decided to hold their next meeting on those issues after the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) later this month.

Yesterday, however, Manning made the offer for the new consultations on the Evidence (Amendment) Bill during Opposition Siparia MP Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s contribution to the debate on the bill. Recommending the bill go to a parliamentary joint select committee, she said an innocent man could end up on death row and ’not a single witness attends’ as she claimed the recorded evidence would be untested by cross-examination when Manning rose.

’You talk about a select committee; if we go that route, it is time-consuming and all kinds of things, and we will have to go to recess. Would you consider consultation between the Government and Opposition? Would you consider that?’ Manning asked.

Panday was not in the Parliament Chamber at the time, and Persad-Bissessar said she would have to discuss the matter with him.

’I did not know that you were subject to those constraints,’ Manning quipped.

As the chamber burst into laughter, Persad-Bissessar told Manning to ’please be advised accordingly’ and added the last time she made a unilateral decision, ’it didn’t work out too well’.

At around 6.45 p.m., Imbert rose to his feet and announced the consultations would take place on Tuesday and said the Lower House would hold its next sitting next Friday (November 20), and the debate on the bill would be completed then.

Opposition Chief Whip Hamza Rafeeq, however, said ’after consultation, it might be difficult for us to meet on Tuesday, and we would prefer Wednesday’. Imbert amended his earlier announcement and said the meeting will take place either Tuesday or Wednesday but did not say where it would occur.