–threatens to refer MPs to Parliamentary Committee of Privileges

ARGUING that criticisms of the Speaker of the House is permissible only by way of a motion tabled in the National Assembly, House Speaker, Manzoor Nadir, has said that punitive actions will be taken should Members of Parliament (MPs) continue to breach the established Standing Orders.
His warning was directed specifically at Leader of the Opposition, Joseph Harmon and Opposition MP, Sherod Duncan, who were both critical of the Speaker on various social media platforms. “I am no one’s little boy or intimidated by front yard or back yard bullies,” Nadir said during the sitting of the National Assembly, on Thursday, when he called out MPs for breaching various Standing Orders.

According to the Speaker, in the space of one week, he has witnessed many breaches of Standing Orders, parliamentary conventions and custom and practices. Some of those breaches included personal and offensive charges against him by MPs and the dissemination of a recording from an in-camera meeting of Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
Addressing the criticisms against him, Nadir said: “It seems that after the sixteenth sitting of the National Assembly, it was open season on the Standing Orders and the speaker.”
Citing the Canadian House of Commons Procedure and Practice, Nadir said one of the best known rules of parliamentary procedures is that the conduct of the Speaker cannot be criticised except by way of a substantive motion. Duncan and Harmon have been particularly critical of the Speaker because of their dissatisfaction with his conduct during the debates on the Narcotics Bill and his decision to not entertain a motion related to the murder of the “Henry boys”.
Duncan, in a post on his Facebook Page, said: “Mr. Speaker started out nice like them new cookshop and then the price raise and standard fall… I thought after the second bout of COVID he would stay close to God.”

This, Nadir said, was supplemented by criticisms made by Harmon, who appeared recently on a social media show hosted by Duncan.
Social media was again the source of exposure of breaches of the Standing Orders, as it was a Whatsapp message to the Speaker, which included a recording of a part of the in-camera proceedings of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) meeting on Monday February 1, 2021.
The Speaker, in addressing that, reminded members that Standing Order 95 (9) (a) stipulates that meetings of committees shall be held in private.
“I caution and implore Honourable Members to respect and uphold the Standing Orders and not to bring the National Assembly into disrepute,” Nadir said.
He warned MPs that further breaches of the standing orders may result in them being referred to the Parliamentary Committee of Privileges for disciplinary action.