Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira says MPs’ con­duct in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives last Fri­day over the mi­cro­phone mat­ter fell short of the stan­dards that cit­i­zens are en­ti­tled to ex­pect from their elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Vieira said he is equal­ly con­cerned about al­le­ga­tions of po­lit­i­cal bias against par­lia­men­tary staff, even though no in­ves­ti­ga­tion has yet been es­tab­lished.

“Re­cent events in the House have been deeply dis­ap­point­ing and should con­cern all cit­i­zens,” Vieira said in a state­ment on Mon­day.

He was speak­ing about the chaos that erupt­ed in the House last Fri­day dur­ing the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee meet­ing when Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Bar­ry Padarath ac­cused Par­lia­ment staff of al­leged­ly mut­ing his mi­cro­phone.

Padarath re­ject­ed Op­po­si­tion al­le­ga­tions that he al­so in­tim­i­dat­ed a Par­lia­ment staffer op­er­at­ing the mi­cro­phone sys­tem.

Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion mem­bers roared ac­cu­sa­tions at each oth­er, and House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh, chair­man of the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee, sus­pend­ed pro­ceed­ings.

Jagdeo, at Mon­day’s House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives sit­ting, hint­ed that he had a state­ment to make, but none was de­liv­ered that day. The House meets again to­mor­row.

In his state­ment, Vieira said Par­lia­ment is not mere­ly a place for de­bate or an­oth­er po­lit­i­cal are­na. It is one of the prin­ci­pal in­sti­tu­tions of democ­ra­cy, where laws are made, pub­lic ex­pen­di­ture is scru­ti­nised, gov­ern­ments are held ac­count­able, and na­tion­al is­sues are de­bat­ed on the peo­ple’s be­half.

“The dig­ni­ty, cred­i­bil­i­ty and ef­fec­tive­ness of Par­lia­ment are there­fore mat­ters of na­tion­al im­por­tance. The con­duct re­cent­ly dis­played in the Low­er House fell short of the stan­dards that cit­i­zens are en­ti­tled to ex­pect from their elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives. While opin­ions may dif­fer re­gard­ing how par­tic­u­lar events un­fold­ed, mem­bers on all sides of the Cham­ber have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to con­duct them­selves with re­straint, re­spect and pro­fes­sion­al­ism.

“While ro­bust dis­agree­ment is an es­sen­tial fea­ture of par­lia­men­tary democ­ra­cy, dis­or­der, per­son­al at­tacks and con­duct that di­min­ish­es the in­sti­tu­tion are not.

“Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment must nev­er lose sight of the fact that they are con­stant­ly be­ing ob­served by the pub­lic.

“Their words and ac­tions help shape the tone of na­tion­al dis­course. When pub­lic rep­re­sen­ta­tives act with cour­tesy, dis­ci­pline and re­spect, they strength­en con­fi­dence in de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tions. When they do not, they risk en­cour­ag­ing pre­cise­ly the be­hav­iours they ought to dis­cour­age.”

Vieira said he is equal­ly con­cerned by sug­ges­tions that par­lia­men­tary staff and of­fi­cials are act­ing with po­lit­i­cal bias, es­pe­cial­ly when no in­ves­ti­ga­tion has yet es­tab­lished any such bias.

“Hav­ing served in Par­lia­ment since 2013, I have worked close­ly with suc­ces­sive clerks, of­fi­cers and mem­bers of staff un­der gov­ern­ments of dif­fer­ent po­lit­i­cal per­sua­sions. My ex­pe­ri­ence has been that they have con­duct­ed them­selves with pro­fes­sion­al­ism, com­pe­tence and po­lit­i­cal neu­tral­i­ty.

“Our Par­lia­ment has earned a rep­u­ta­tion through­out the Com­mon­wealth and the Caribbean as a re­spect­ed in­sti­tu­tion sup­port­ed by a high­ly pro­fes­sion­al par­lia­men­tary ad­min­is­tra­tion. That rep­u­ta­tion was not built overnight. It re­flects decades of ded­i­cat­ed ser­vice by men and women who car­ry out their du­ties re­gard­less of which par­ty forms the Gov­ern­ment or the Op­po­si­tion,” he added.

Vieira said that where con­cerns arise re­gard­ing broad­cast­ing pro­ce­dures, ad­min­is­tra­tive de­ci­sions or par­lia­men­tary op­er­a­tions, there are es­tab­lished par­lia­men­tary mech­a­nisms through which such mat­ters can be ex­am­ined fair­ly and ob­jec­tive­ly.

“Al­le­ga­tions of in­sti­tu­tion­al bias should not be made light­ly. Such claims can un­fair­ly dam­age rep­u­ta­tions, un­der­mine staff morale, weak­en pub­lic con­fi­dence in an im­por­tant de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tion and place ded­i­cat­ed pub­lic ser­vants in an un­ten­able po­si­tion while they con­tin­ue to per­form their du­ties. Par­lia­men­tary of­fi­cers and staff must be able to dis­charge their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties pro­fes­sion­al­ly with­out fear, in­tim­i­da­tion or po­lit­i­cal pres­sure.”