Speaker Trotman offered no protection to the ordinary citizens

May 01, 2014 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,
Minister Manickchand’s heckling of CN Sharma, her subsequent facebook outburst and refusal to apologize, the Speaker’s ban and subsequent volte-face of his own edict, has set before this nation an obvious double standard when juxtaposed against, for example, MP Ferguson “like father like son” barracking of Minister Benn.
Though not directly naming anyone, the comment was calculated to and did cause Minister Benn some amount of public embarrassment for which MP Ferguson unreservedly apologized at the insistence of the speaker.
In the Manickchand-Sharma case the “Honourable” Minister did specifically mention the name “your APNU member Sharma”, the Speaker later determined that those comments were not directed at MP Jaipaul Sharma personally but rather his dad (CN Sharma), and since CN Sharma does not sit in the House then the Minister has no need to apologise. I have not in many moons heard of such a patently unfair and politically jaundiced ruling, steeped in the pulp of political cowardice.
Based on his ruling, the Speaker has in essence declared an open season and happy hour for MPs to cowardly heckle and slander private citizens across the floor under the cover of parliamentary privilege. The Speaker was pointed, that he had on previous occasions cautioned MPs not to use their privilege to attack other MPs and their families, except that the junior Sharma deserves no such protection from attack and vilification.
Speaker Trotman has long been one of my political favourites, but I have to call him out on this one, simply because of the far-reaching implications and precedence his judgment carries. Speaker Trotman has himself admitted that as a result of his jaundiced ruling he was “tested” and his “ability to command the respect of the entire House was diminished.”
Demonstratively no amount of quasi words of contrition can substitute for doing the right thing.
The Speaker should have enforced the apology for these basic reasons:
1. Evenhandedness and consistency is desirable at all times.  If, as he said, he desires to stamp out the heckling of MPs families, why one father and son got the protection of the Speaker and the other didn’t?
2. Minister Manickchand is a trained lawyer and knows the principles of justice that unless convicted by a competent court of law, a person remains as innocent as the baby in the back seat. Beyond that, like all of us, the Minister is aware of many more serious allegations of sexual misconduct and pedophilia levied against characters in her own political house for which, to this day, she maintains a deafening silence.
3. Mr. CN Sharma was not in Parliament or could not come to the Parliament to defend himself and in that regard, attacking a defenseless private citizen while hiding behind the foxhole of parliamentary privilege is the epitome of injustice and pusillanimity.
4. It is not to be forgotten that the man-in-the-street believes that the allegations and charges of pedophilia against Sharma were politically orchestrated and trumped up to silence a growingly formidable opponent. If there is any truth to that, then the Speaker has given the political architects of Sharma’s downfall greater leverage, opportunity, ammunition and platform for extra-judicial prosecution, character assassination and public ridicule.
It may be too late (and perhaps, way too contentious) for the Speaker to forswear the repudiation of his original ruling, however it is not too late for the Speaker to restate his no-nonsense approach to family derogation via heckling in the House. If confidence is to be restored to the chair of the Speaker he must, in the future, deal more austerely with offenders regardless of which side of the floor their seat is located. Otherwise it can be Benn this day, Sharma the next, Bond, Jones or Hinds the other and God knows who next. Private citizens will awake to read the morning newspapers that they are the subject of a distasteful parliamentary barrack.
On the part of Miss Manickchand, no fair-minded or sensible person will think less of her if she displays magnanimity and offers a belated apology to the Sharmas. If for nothing else, she should issue the apology for the dangerous precedent her actions can set in motion, being very mindful that she genuinely offended a colleague MP.
How would the honourable Minister feel if at the next session of parliament she hears an allegation against one of her relatives hurled across the floor in an unsavoury manner by another MP? Is it fair game? It takes the strength of character to right this wrong and I urge the Honourable Minister to now step out of the comfort zone and do the right thing.
Lenno Craig

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