Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Deputy House Speak­er Es­mond Forde has ruled that there is no pri­ma fa­cie case to have At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour sent be­fore Par­lia­ment’s Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee, as UNC MP Sad­dam Ho­sein re­cent­ly re­quest­ed.

Forde did so at Wednes­day’s House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives sit­ting.

Ho­sein made his re­quest to have Ar­mour sent to the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee, af­ter claim­ing Ar­mour mis­led the Par­lia­ment when he said (dur­ing a Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee meet­ing on May 5) that he pro­vid­ed Par­lia­ment with a sum­ma­ry list­ing of names of at­tor­neys who had been paid le­gal fees.

In Par­lia­ment on Wednes­day, Ar­mour de­liv­ered a state­ment ex­plain­ing the sit­u­a­tion, not­ing that he in­ad­ver­tent­ly, and in­cor­rect­ly stat­ed that the in­for­ma­tion was pro­vid­ed, that it wasn’t de­lib­er­ate, and he apol­o­gised to the House and Ho­sein.

Forde, rul­ing on Ho­sein’s re­quest, not­ed that at the sit­ting ear­li­er, Ar­mour, via per­son­al ex­pla­na­tion, stat­ed that his com­ments, which led to the mat­ter of priv­i­lege be­ing raised, were made with ref­er­ence to doc­u­ments which had been pro­vid­ed to him and which were in his pos­ses­sion dur­ing the de­lib­er­a­tions of the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee.

Forde not­ed, “He ad­mit­ted to in­ad­ver­tent­ly, and in­cor­rect­ly stat­ing that the in­for­ma­tion had been pro­vid­ed to the Par­lia­ment and fur­ther ex­plained that the er­ror was nei­ther de­lib­er­ate nor in­tend­ed to mis­lead this Ho­n­ourable House.”

Forde not­ed that Ar­mour al­so apol­o­gised to Ho­sein and the House. He re­mind­ed mem­bers that when as­sur­ances, promis­es and un­der­tak­ings are giv­en by min­is­ters on the floor, “It falls with­in their per­son­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure that the in­for­ma­tion to be de­liv­ered to the House is ac­cu­rate and com­plete and most im­por­tant­ly, that the in­for­ma­tion is in fact de­liv­ered.”

“I am sat­is­fied with the ex­pla­na­tion and the apol­o­gy of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al in re­la­tion to this is­sue and I am equal­ly sat­is­fied that this ex­pla­na­tion was done at the ear­li­est op­por­tu­ni­ty, as is our prac­tice. I, there­fore, rule that the mat­ter does not con­sti­tute a pri­ma fa­cie breach of priv­i­lege war­rant­i­ng its re­fer­ral to the Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges,” Forde added.

Forde al­so warned Op­po­si­tion MPs against their ex­ces­sive­ly long loud desk-thump­ing dur­ing the sit­ting.