Speaker’s decision cannot be questioned in debate – Ramkarran

Speaker of the National Assembly Ralph Ramkarran said yesterday that his decision to disallow Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh from criticizing his approval for the PNCR-1G to lay a motion, which was later voted against by the government last week, had to do with the integrity of the House. He added that his decision could not be called into question during a debate.
His comments came in a statement in response to Cabinet Secretary Dr Roger Luncheon’s comment that the Speaker’s actions in the matter were “astonishing”. Luncheon during his post Cabinet media briefing on Friday, told reporters that Cabinet resolved that the exercise of its executive prerogative in bringing matters of a financial nature to the attention of Parliament for its consideration and its enactment would not be stayed, or shared. The Government Information Agency (GINA) quoted Luncheon as saying that the Speaker apparently defended his act of denial of the Singh’s right to reply, by insisting that the minister was challenging his ruling or authority. Luncheon, according to GINA, also said that Cabinet examined the matter and reiterated its resolute commitment to the principle of executive prerogative in presenting legislation on financial matters to Parl-iament and fully supported Singh’s argument.
According to Luncheon, Cabinet was taken aback by the Speaker’s “fundamentally flawed” position and decided that Singh’s statement would be made public.
The dispute over the motion, put forward by PNCR-1G front bencher Winston Murray during a late night debate last Thursday, stirred much interest among some MPs when Singh said he was not prepared to argue about the merits or demerits of provisions in place for financial accountability as he disagreed with the decisions by Ramkarran to approve the motion for the Order Paper. Singh had said that the motion violated Section 171 of the Constitution and Standing Order 25.
The PNCR motion’s intention was to limit the aggregate amount of debt that could be forgiven without the approval of the National Assembly. It also proposed the limit under Section 81 (30 of the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act, according to Murray and AFC MP Khemraj Ramjattan was meant to assure accountability and transparency given the fact that government was lending taxpayers money to businesses, including, among others, hoteliers for the Cricket World Cup 2007 period, and to make certain that the monies were properly accounted for.
Ramkarran asked Singh on several occasions to indicate immediately how he had violated the Standing Orders or withdraw his statement. Singh sought to explain why he was of the view that the Speaker violated the Standing Orders but the Speaker insisted that he would not allow Singh to continue speaking unless he demonstrated how he reached his conclusion.
Following a resumption of the session, after a ten-minute suspension, Singh said he was willing to withdraw the statement but still wanted to explain the government’s position. Ramkarran said he would not allow the line of argument that Singh was putting forward since questioning the Speaker’s decision had to be done by way of a motion. Singh declined to proceed.
Referring to Luncheon’s statements, Ramkarran in his statement released yesterday said the issue had nothing to do with executive prerogative or any such misconceived and misunderstood concept. “It has to do with the integrity of the National Assembly. Whether my decision was right or wrong is not the issue. The real issue is the manner in which a decision of the Speaker can be challenged.”
Ramkarran stated: “Let me make it clear. I shall defend the integrity of the National Assembly whenever and by whomever it is challenged for as long as I am the Speaker.”
He explained that the Standing Orders are clear and noted that the conduct of the Speaker, which includes a decision, cannot be called into question in a debate, the statement said, reiterating comments made in a statement, which he distributed in Parliament on the matter. He emphasised too that such action could only be done by way of a motion tabled for the purpose.
“This was the reason that I disallowed Dr Singh from proceeding with his speech. It is of significance that Dr Luncheon studiously avoided any reference to this aspect in his remarks except platitudes about my ruling being ‘fundamentally flawed’,” he said.
Ramkarran said too that Luncheon has “no answer to the attempt of his colleague to attack my decision and to lecture to me about it in debate while I was forced to sit in silence, contrary to the Standing Orders, and to thereby violate the integrity of the National Assembly which was the intent, purpose and objective of the exercise, obviously strongly supported by Dr. Luncheon and the Cabinet colleagues on whose behalf he purported to speak.”
Prior to Thursday’s debate, Ramkarran said, he spoke with Prime Minister Sam Hinds, Donald Ramotar and Gail Teixiera, all MPs, on Wednesday morning. Ac-cording to him, there could have been no mistake or misunderstanding that his objection related to the intention of Dr Singh to violate the Standing Orders.
In this regard, he slammed Luncheon’s statement that the Cabinet was taken aback by his action. “The Cabinet cannot have been taken aback,” he said. “Its representatives swiftly find Standing Orders to justify government’s positions. How come one of the best known Standing Orders about criticizing decisions of the Speaker never came to the attention of Cabinet?”
Ramkarran said the fact that Singh, “despite my privately voiced objections, sought to proceed on this course when it had become known that I would disallow it; despite the government having the majority to defeat the motion without having to resort to criticism of my decision in the debate, which could have been done in any public forum, suggests to me, as it would suggest to any reasonable person, that the intent and purpose of the exercise was to deliberately violate the Standing Orders and to seek a confrontation with me in the National Assembly for reasons best known only to the authors of this exercise.”
He said he believed that Luncheon was seeking to divert attention from the real issue by accusing him of being wrong to allow the motion.
“This attempted disrespect for the rules of the House, however politely expressed, is egregiously offensive and wholly unacceptable. It attacks one of the very foundations of parliamentary democracy – the integrity of the Office of the Speaker which must be protected if parliamentary democracy is to survive,” he said.
Ramkarran said that if every time the government, the opposition or a member disagreed with a decision of the Speaker he or she was permitted to attack that decision in debate, the Office of the Speaker would be quickly undermined and the independence of the National Assembly placed in serious jeopardy.