THE EDITOR: The claim by Opposition MP Saddam Hosein that he was 'unjustly ejected' from the House last Friday by Speaker Bridgid Annisette-George has absolutely no merit based on what transpired prior to the Speaker's action.
As I followed the sitting on my TV, Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi was making a ministerial statement with the approval of the House to go beyond the stipulated time limit. Hosein believed the Attorney General was abusing his privilege as a Member of Parliament by anticipating matters that were not yet considered at the committee stage of the Tobago self-governing bills.
He raised it as a point of order. He was overruled by the Speaker. Al-Wari assured him that this was not so. He then continued to raise several points of order along the same lines, which were overruled on every occasion. He was at the point of arguing with the Speaker when she ordered him to take his seat. He refused to take his seat at least three times before being suspended.
Couva South MP Rudranath Indarsingh tried to get into the act and he too was suspended.
The Speaker has the responsibility to keep order in the House and any reasonable person looking on at the drama on Friday would conclude that Annisette-George was patient and ordered Hosein's removal only when the events threatened to overwhelm the business of the House. It has become the narrative of most Opposition members to cry 'bias' and 'trampling on our democracy' when they themselves breach the Standing Orders.
I sat in the House under Speakers Hector McClean, Dr Rupert Griffith and Barendra Sinanan and their treatment of the Opposition is no different to that of Annisette-George. The PNM was in Opposition when McClean and Griffith sat on the Speaker's chair and the UNC was in Opposition when Sinanan was Speaker. They never tolerated disrespect for the Speaker's chair.
Sinanan had to call on the Parliament's marshals to remove Basdeo Panday when he was suspended from the House but refused to leave. Sinanan suspended the sitting for some time that day so that the marshals did not have to go into action.
There is always a level of banter across the aisles which may be ignored by the Speaker, but wilful disrespect for the chair is hardly tolerated in a parliamentary system.
HARRY PARTAP
former UNC MP
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