Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Ef­forts by Op­po­si­tion MPs Colm Im­bert and Mar­vin Gon­za­les to have Par­lia­ment’s Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee in­ves­ti­gate the Prime Min­is­ter and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al for un­par­lia­men­tary lan­guage have failed, and Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness in the House Bar­ry Padarath has al­so failed in his bid to have Im­bert in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the Priv­i­leges team.

House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh yes­ter­day con­firmed the de­ci­sions in a rul­ing an­nounced in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.
Singh spoke on re­cent com­plaints by Im­bert, Gon­za­les and Padarath.

This con­cerned Im­bert’s move to have the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee in­ves­ti­gate al­leged re­cent re­marks to him by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, or­der­ing him not to point at her and say­ing “I will cuff you down” when he asked why.

Padarath had counter-filed a com­plaint to have the com­mit­tee in­ves­ti­gate Im­bert for al­leged “mo­lesta­tion and men­ac­ing be­hav­iour” to­wards Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Gon­za­les had filed a mo­tion seek­ing to have At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the com­mit­tee for an al­leged ho­mo­pho­bic re­mark heard on an open mi­cro­phone dur­ing re­cent pro­ceed­ings.

Singh said Padarath’s com­plaint “is en­tire­ly de­void of mer­it al­to­geth­er.”

On the two Op­po­si­tion com­plaints, Singh gave lengthy ex­pla­na­tions in­volv­ing pro­ce­dures and ex­pert opin­ions, in­clud­ing cit­ing a rul­ing from for­mer House Speak­er Baren­dra Sinanan.

Based on the var­i­ous as­pects, Singh said Im­bert’s com­plaint was an at­tempt to place em­pha­sis on a sin­gu­lar phrase and ig­nored the con­text and na­ture of the wider ex­change that oc­curred. He said mere words do not “ip­so fac­to” con­sti­tute a breach of priv­i­lege, as there are oth­er ev­i­den­tial thresh­olds to be met, and there must be a clear in­ten­tion be­hind the words.

Singh not­ed Sinanan’s rul­ing that in judg­ing, if some­thing is of­fen­sive, a pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer will be guid­ed by the re­ac­tion of the MP to whom the re­mark is di­rect­ed, and if the MP did not ob­ject, the re­mark will gen­er­al­ly be al­lowed to pass.

Singh al­so said Stand­ing Or­der 55 is a self-reg­u­lat­ing code deal­ing with cross-talk and in­sult­ing lan­guage. He said Im­bert’s fail­ure to in­voke this stand­ing or­der al­so made the com­plaint still­born.

“The com­ment was made in the con­text of a clear ex­change of ban­ter,” Singh added.

He said af­ter the com­ment was made, Im­bert asked the Prime Min­is­ter if she would meet him out­side, to which she replied, and laugh­ter fol­lowed. The Speak­er said the fact that Im­bert took of­fence to the re­mark did not trans­form it in­to con­tempt.
He said there was no at­tempt to raise a point of or­der ob­jec­tion re­gard­ing Stand­ing Or­der 55.

He added that all MPs treat­ed the mat­ter as light ban­ter and there could not have been a re­al threat of vi­o­lence.

“This was noth­ing more than ban­ter. The com­plaint does not meet the thresh­old, so the com­plaint is still­born,” he said.

Singh said Gon­za­les’s com­plaint was based on a so­cial me­dia au­dio record­ing as the on­ly ev­i­dence, but it did not in­clude an of­fi­cial broad­cast or Par­lia­ment’s Hansard record. Nor did Gon­za­les write to Par­lia­ment to ver­i­fy the record­ing. He said Hansard is the of­fi­cial record, but Hansard does not car­ry a ref­er­ence to cross-talk.

Singh said there was no video cap­ture of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al mak­ing the re­mark. Not­ing Stand­ing Or­der 55 again, he said noth­ing was raised im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the al­leged words were ut­tered. He al­so raised hy­po­thet­i­cal sit­u­a­tions where one might be ex­am­in­ing a phone and blurt out a re­mark.