My fellow St Lucians, I know that most of you peace loving people, if not all, felt utterly disappointed and disgraced by the level of misconduct displayed by our opposition parliamentarians led by Mr Philip J Pierre and Dr Kenny Anthony at Tuesday 13th September’s sitting of the House.
For some it was probably the worst level of disorder and disrespect ever seen at the House of Assembly in living memory. One which they sought to justify by an assertion that the sitting was illegal because the House was not properly constituted, because of a failure on their part to elect a deputy Speaker as provided for at section 36 (1) of the Constitution. However, they totally ignored the provisions of section 35(6), section 44 and section 53 of the same Constitution as they were not convenient for their argument. We have all seen that they were wrong to assume that the sitting was illegal as was reported in Wednesday’s issue of the STAR.
As members of the legislature, they should have been aware that the intent of the Constitution is not to frustrate parliament or the government but to facilitate, in an expeditious and expedient way, the business of the people. It is for this reason that provision was made in the Constitution to allow the House to elect someone other than an elected member to sit as Speaker and preside over the business of the House. Had it not made those provisions, can you imagine the chaos it could create in governance? Then try to imagine a government of (9) nine to (8) eight where the government is shouldered with the responsibility of filling the position of Speaker and deputy Speaker from its (9) nine elected members, that would make it impossible for it to govern.
Consequently, such abhorrent behaviour should not be accepted by persons entrusted with looking after the business of the people and I believe Dr Anthony and his colleague parliamentarians should publicly apologize to the nation and to the Speaker for their inexcusable behaviour at that infamous sitting of the parliament.
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