APNU Chairman David Granger said that while the party is not prepared at this point to table a Motion of No Confidence against Speaker of the National Assembly Raphael Trotman, it will challenge the ruling he rendered on Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee speaking in the House.
“We don’t want to generalise at this point in this… We certainly reject the ruling and we will challenge the ruling. We have the right to challenge the ruling and if we feel the ruling is flawed we are going to challenge it,” he said.
“The ruling should have been delivered in the House and we will challenge it in the House and we are confident that we can have that challenge upheld,” Granger said yesterday. Asked what the party’s position would mean for its relationship with the Speaker – who hails from the opposition ranks – Granger, who is also leader of the PNCR said that Trotman “made a mistake. We are not going to judge the Speaker on one incident. This particular matter has to be corrected because it is flawed. But I do not see at this point in time… a Motion of No Confidence against the Speaker. What we want to do is have this flawed ruling corrected.”
Following Trotman’s ruling on Friday, the main opposition condemned his decision, saying it was riddled with errors and of questionable legal soundness.
Trotman issued the ruling without prior notice. It said essentially that Rohee could speak in the National Assembly and that the minister will be allowed to participate fully in parliamentary life, following an attempt by the opposition to gag him after the refusal of government to act on a no confidence motion passed against him.
APNU’s Shadow Minister of Legal Affairs Basil Williams told a news conference earlier this week that the coalition rejected the ruling and that the Speaker’s diktat “was handed down without giving the majority opposition and the minority government an opportunity to make their contributions on the issue, in a debate in the National Assembly.” He said APNU is interested in debating the matter, following which the Speaker was free to then make a ruling.
APNU MP and Deputy Speaker Deborah Backer added that the coalition remains resolute that Rohee is incompetent to perform as the minister and vowed that it will continue to explore every legitimate means of having him removed.
Meanwhile, the AFC has said it will respect Trotman’s decision to accord Rohee full parliamentary participation. However, that party warned that the inability to hold the executive and its ministers accountable would render the National Assembly a joke. Trotman hails from the AFC.
The AFC in a statement said that its leadership finds the ruling well-intentioned with the undoubted purpose of halting the current impasse in the House. However, it noted that at the same time its MPs reserved the right to cooperate or not to with the minister.
