AMONG the first lessons that any young person is taught is to respect the laws of the country in which he or she lives. And this is also applicable to all other countries where law and order exist.

Underlining this fact is the truism that laws are essential for the regulation of every  society, since they are a guide to one’s conduct and relation to his or her fellow citizens.
But this respect is also extended to certain categories of citizens, chiefly those who have been tasked with the responsibility of governing the country: The  magistrates and judges, whose chief function is to determine the guilt or not of those accused of certain offences, which means that they have been accused of infringing the laws of the land;  the commissioner of police or police chief,  who is responsible for law and order; and other important holders of State office.

Even the buildings in which the foregoing categories of high State officials carry out their daily functions do elicit an immediate feeling of respect, at times bordering on reverence, whenever one enters.

And so it is also with the Parliament or National Assembly; the legislative repository of any democratic State where proposals are tabled for eventual legislation, debated, and eventually agreed on, before becoming law.

But even this law-making assembly that meets to discuss and determine the business of the people itself functions in accordance with precise procedures that inform every official action of its members. And this extends to the decorum and behaviour of this collective, given the at times contentious nature of the particular matter that may be engaging the attention of the Assembly.

But since this august assembly is governed in its daily business by procedures, then there is the person of the Speaker, who is the embodiment of these regulatory guides, and who is therefore tasked with the uncompromising function of ensuring that all of its procedures are properly and impartially applied to every member’s action as pertains to whatever specific matter engages the Assembly.

This makes him or her the judge and referee, since he or she has to be impartial. In fact, so revered is this parliamentary chair, that his or her intervention, for whatever reason whilst any member of the Assembly is addressing the Assembly, signals an instant cessation of the latter action, and the immediate taking of one’s seat, until the Speaker completes his reason for interruption.

There are even strict procedures to be followed, for objection(s) to his rulings etc.
The Chair of the Speaker has the equal force of a judge, and can order punitive measures to be taken against any member found to have infracted the laws of the House while it is in official session.

For all of the challenges that this country would have experienced in its modern political history, there have always been due respect for this very important person, whose function, in a nutshell, can be summed up as overseeing and guiding the business of the National Assembly.

One may recall the instance in the 1970s when the then Leader of the Opposition, in a manner of protest, removed the Mace, the symbol of the Speaker’s authority, from its cradle. The upshot of that infraction was that the Opposition Leader was debarred from speaking on any matter in the House until he apologised.

This 11th Parliament has been witness to a defined pattern of behaviour by a specific section of its members that is definitely a marked departure from its traditional decorum: The non-adherence to its protocol and procedures, and a natural behaviour that can only be described as grossly disrespectful to the person of the Speaker and his Chair.
One may recall the infamy of the conduct of an Opposition MP who, although ordered to sit by the Speaker, defied the latter order, to the point that he even refused to leave the National Assembly’s Chamber when ordered to do so.

What followed was so scandalous and shameful, that it can only be aptly described as “Guyana’s Parliamentary Day of Shame”. The errant MP received a suspension which was rather charitable, given the seriousness of his offence.

The more than shocking, shameful, and equally abysmal behaviour of the entire Parliamentary Opposition when they heckled the person of the President during his address to Parliament took the National Assembly to an all-time low in its respect for the nation’s highest dignatory.

The latest act of  parliamentary desecration by another PPP/C Member of Parliament displays a total disregard for Assembly’s procedures.
These acts are no doubt linked to the Parliamentary Opposition’s refusal to accept the 2015 National Election that brought about their defeat. Better yet, they are a pattern of an orchestration of measures designed to continuously disrespect the nation’s highest officials of State.

But in doing so, this Parliamentary Opposition and its MPs are emitting a most serious type of conduct that is totally disagreeable; so degrading in every sense, that it reflects a gutter level of indiscipline as MPs ever recorded in the history of the National Assembly.
They must be reminded that they are Members of Parliament; elected to represent their constituents, and are law-makers, a very seminal undertaking which places them in the category of leadership par excellence. How do they expect their followers particularly to follow them, heeding their every advice and guidance when the examples they set leave much to be desired?

It is time that these Opposition MPs understand that to continue in such a distasteful manner poses a threat to the sanctity of the State, and to law and order in general. The National Assembly, as the nation’s law-making body, must be respected; and this is inclusive of the important person of the Speaker.