Fickle Opposition puts Parliament on dangerous pathway
– warns that established parliamentary rules cannot be ‘wished away’
THE three Motions put forward by the Opposition to be tabled in the National Assembly were yesterday deferred to March 30 after members on the Government side of the House presented convincing arguments, citing the absence of the necessary documents accompanying the Motions. Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, who is also Leader of the House, explained that all three Motions seek to amend various sections of the Standing Orders and, as such, unless the Speaker of the House directs otherwise, notice accompanied by the draft of the proposed amendments had to be submitted to the Parliament Office, which are subsequently circulated to parliamentarians.
However, there were no proposed amendments accompanying the Motions that were slated to be tabled.
He further explained that the requirement of Standing Order 111 (1), which deals with the amendments of Standing Orders, had not been met and, as such, the Motions were not properly before the House.
A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) member, Basil William, who is the mover of one of the three Motions, said that the rules were not made to hinder the internal business of the House and submitted that the Speaker is empowered to use his discretion to allow for the tabling of the Motion notwithstanding the unmet requirements.
Alliance For Change (AFC) member, Khemraj Ramjattan stated that the established Standing Orders should not be seen as mandatory.
Members from both APNU and the AFC also maintained that the three Motions, which deals with the Composition of the Committee of Selection, Representation on Sectoral committees and the Composition of the Parliamentary Management Committee that were deferred to the next sitting, should have been considered at yesterday’s sitting.
Following Prime Minister Samuel Hind’s presentation of the Government’s argument, several members of the opposition pointed out that there was “no harm” in considering the three Motions dealing with the call for an amendment of Standing Orders, despite the governing party’s stance that there was no proposed amendment accompanying the Motions.

DO NOT FALL PREY TO CAPRICIOUSNESS
As such, Government’s Chief Whip, Gail Teixeira urged the House not to fall prey to capriciousness as the rules have been developed overtime. In July last year, the same rules were again revised at a parliamentary select committee comprised of members from all the Parties.
“Whether it is an oversight or not, the reason why the draft amendment is included in Standing Order 111 (1), is to allow the House to know the exact wording of the amendment that is being brought to the Standing Orders. It is an important inclusion…there are reasons why Parliaments work with certain rules and discipline,” Teixeira said.
She also reminded that the Standing Orders Committee report of 2007 dealt with two amendments that were brought to the National Assembly, both of which were accompanied by draft amendments and went directly to the Standing Orders Committee.
She said that since then, nothing has changed in terms of compliance and respect to what the House stands for and added that, “if a member wants to move a suspension of the Standing Orders, he/she has a right to do so, but it must be done after written notice is given within the required time frame.”
The Government Chief Whip also warned that this level of capriciousness displayed by the Opposition puts the Parliament on a dangerous pathway.
“There are reasons why Parliaments works with certain rules and discipline. Deviating from these would be anarchy. I’m appealing to you that this level of capriciousness is a dangerous road this parliament is going down; we regret that the Members on the other side did not study the Standing Orders. We can’t run roughshod over these issues, we all have a right to see that in the crafting of these three motions, one has no idea of what the exact wording of each amendment will be,” Teixeira said.
In closing, the Government Chief Whip expressed the view that all members of the House cannot, at every sitting, be permitted to “wish away and throw away” bits of the standing orders as and when it becomes suitable.
The Prime Minister, in his concluding remarks on the matter, said that changing the makeup of the committees, does harm to certain provisions in the Constitution and even existing Standing Orders and for this same reason, Government has had to move to the court. He maintained that in light of this, consideration of Motions such as these, should await the ruling of the court.
After a brief 10-minute suspension, the Speaker Mr. Raphael Trotman, in his ruling said that there must be a copy of the proposed amendments accompanying the Motion; noting that the Clerk admitted that he has erred by allowing for the Motions to be printed on the Order Paper without the requisite amendments being attached.
Using his discretion, he agreed to abridge the timeframe for which notice of the Motion should be given from 12 days to 48 hours.
The matter will be dealt with at the next sitting of the House on March 30, at which date Minister of Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh, will present the 2012 National Budget.