Gail Alexan­der

Gov­ern­ment yes­ter­day called for In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Dana See­ta­hal to be sent be­fore Par­lia­ment's Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee for al­leged con­tempt of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives af­ter com­ments she made about House Speak­er Baren­dra Sinanan in her Sun­day Guardian col­umn last week­end.

In­for­ma­tion Min­is­ter Neil Parsan­lal made the ap­pli­ca­tion dur­ing yes­ter­day's Low­er House ses­sion. He said any state­ment in the House re­flect­ing on the of­fice of the Speak­er, di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly, was con­sid­ered out of or­der.

Adding that the sit­u­a­tion re­gard­ing See­ta­hal's com­ments was a clear case of con­tempt of the House, Parsan­lal said, "Ms See­ta­hal is a sea­soned mem­ber of the oth­er place (Sen­ate) and is prob­a­bly more con­ver­sant than most with the rules gov­ern­ing the priv­i­leges of mem­bers and of the Hous­es. "Yet, with­in this very ar­ti­cle, she lib­er­al­ly quotes the Stand­ing Or­ders of the Par­lia­ment while pub­licly cas­ti­gat­ing the ac­tions of the Chair in the per­for­mance of its func­tion," Sinanan said since he was in­volved in the mat­ter, he would re­cuse him­self from the is­sue and would let Deputy Speak­er Pen­ne­lope Beck­les de­cide on whether the is­sue would be re­ferred to the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee. Parsan­lal in his ap­pli­ca­tion, not­ed See­ta­hal's com­ments in her col­umn about last week's Val­i­da­tion bill de­bate in Par­lia­ment, that in­clud­ed the face-off be­tween Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning and for­mer Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley.

Parsan­lal not­ed among oth­er things in See­ta­hal's ar­ti­cle, that she had said the de­bate had de­volved in­to name-call­ing and bad­mouthing and the fact that this was al­lowed to hap­pen must sure­ly lie with the Speak­er of the House, who is re­spon­si­ble for reg­u­lat­ing the con­duct of the busi­ness of the House. Parsan­lal said the of­fice of Speak­er was a high­ly re­gard­ed one. "It re­quires the in­cum­bent to ex­er­cise the pa­tience of Job on the one hand and the wis­dom of Solomon on the oth­er to en­sure that the busi­ness of the House is con­duct­ed in a man­ner be­com­ing of the high­est court of the land. It there­fore re­quires mem­bers to treat the Speak­er's Chair with def­er­ence and re­spect," Parsan­lal said, not­ing the process in New Zealand and the House of Com­mons. Parsan­lal said the House had pro­vid­ed a mech­a­nism for mem­bers to air their con­cerns about the con­duct of a Speak­er. He added, "Any ques­tions on the con­duct of the Speak­er in the ex­er­cise of his func­tion must be brought by way of a sub­stan­tive mo­tion. In­deed, Ms See­ta­hal says as much in her ar­ti­cle when she notes that the con­duct of an MP should not be called in­to ques­tion ex­cept on a sub­stan­tive mo­tion moved for that pur­pose."

He said mem­bers were aware that any mem­ber could bring a sub­stan­tive mo­tion for de­bate in the House in or­der to have the House con­sid­er the con­duct of the Speak­er. "To do oth­er­wise, is to dis­re­gard the rules of this Ho­n­ourable House and to en­gage in be­hav­iours that are cer­tain to bring the House in­to odi­um and ridicule," Parsan­lal added.