FINALLY the Honourable Speaker of the National Assembly has made what must be considered a final ruling on the matter of Opposition Leader David Granger’s gag motion against Minister of Home Affairs,ruling that the latter’s entitled privileges as a member of the House, and cabinet minister must no longer be impeded, since such is against the “Constitution, established practices, principles, customs and privileges of the House, Member of this House, and the Westminster System that we subscribe to and practise.”

One hopes that this very important decision would have restored the dignity of the House, and more importantly,  the traditional trust and fairness reposed in the Office of the Speaker.
But one must now digress to a particular issue that has been observed from the beginning of this current 10th Parliament; one that has arisen because of the parliamentary opposition’s perceived power from its one extra seat.
Both parliamentary opposition parties have constantly accused the PPP/C government of not respecting their motions and resultant decisions as arrived at in the House. They argue that Parliament’s decisions should be respected. One concludes that they are taking issue with the court challenges against their rulings as made in the august Assembly.
But in the same vein, do these two parties respect the court’s ruling whenever made? One only has to refer to the learned Chief Justice’s ruling on their parliamentary motion that gagged Minister Rohee within the National Assembly. As a matter of fact, even the Speaker’s initial ruling given after consultation with legal luminaries, and which advised that the Motion was without any legal effect, had been disregarded by both  A Party for National Unity and the Alliance For Change.
What about the other rulings by the Speaker on this very issue that these two groups have also ignored, even including their belligerent conduct within the house, despite repeated warnings from the Speaker that caused the latter to angrily leave the House?
The pivotal question here is whether the parliamentary opposition, by their constant, ill- advised actions and disrespectful conduct were in any position to level such accusations against their counterparts.