Govt. sees no need for Privileges Committee on Rohee

Feb 28, 2013 News

The government says it sees no need for the Parliamentary Privileges Committee which was set up to determine if the National Assembly has the powers to sanction a Member and if those sanctions could include stopping Minister Rohee from speaking.
Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon, yesterday said that the government’s decision is in keeping with Friday’s ruling of Speaker Raphael Trotman that he would allow Rohee to participate fully in the business of the National Assembly.
Eight months ago, the National Assembly moved a no-confidence motion against Rohee, and given his refusal to follow convention and resign, the opposition moved to have him barred from speaking.
The Speaker had ruled that since the matter of speaking in the House is a privilege, he was sending the matter to the Privileges Committee.
The Committee of Privileges has been set up to determine what, if any, are the powers of the National Assembly to sanction a Member of Parliament, who is a Minister appointed by the President, for failing to resign following the adoption of a Motion of No-Confidence in him.
If the Committee does conclude that the National Assembly can sanction a member, it would then have to determine what sanctions including, preventing the Minister from speaking, are available to the National Assembly.
But given the latest ruling by the Speaker, Dr Luncheon said that it would be “contradictory” for the Committee to continue to meet and would be “inconsistent” with the ruling of the Speaker.
The largest opposition coalition bloc APNU said that the Speaker’s ruling was premature, since the Privileges Committee has not yet made its findings known. The Committee has to present its report to the National Assembly.
Given that the Speaker has ruled that he would allow Rohee to speak, senior APNU member Deborah Backer asked what would happen if the Privileges Committee comes back and says Rohee cannot speak. And so, APNU is still looking to the Privileges Committee to complete its work.
The seven-seat Alliance for Change (AFC) has said that it would respect the ruling of the Speaker, but has not said whether it would sit and listen to Rohee or if it would vote for the national security budget under Rohee.
The Privileges Committee is chaired by the Speaker and has five members from the opposition and four members from the government side of the House.
At the first meeting of the Committee on January 21, all parties agreed to await the final decision of the Chief Justice on the matter.
Chang had made a provisional ruling saying that the National Assembly could not restrict Rohee from speaking, but he indicated that he could not dictate to the House what it should do.
The Chief Justice’s final ruling is imminent.

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Govt. sees no need for Privileges Committee on Rohee

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