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Nandlall’s position is a recipe for parliamentary hooliganism

Dec 22, 2016 Letters

Dear Editor,
This is my final letter on Mr Anil Nandlall’s rejection of the Speaker’s ruling against him. I thank you for publishing the previous letters. I can assure you this is my final word. I turn to his philosophical postulations. They are bizarre, startling and utter rubbish. It is a sure recipe for anarchy and parliamentary hooliganism. Where a proposition is illogical as being in defiance of the universality of rights and freedoms undifferentiatedly enjoyable by all members of the Assembly (which universality inheres in the opening words of article 171(1) viz “Any member ..”) such illogicality would suggest that the proposition is fallacious.
Had Mr. Nandlall directed his mind to, and reflected upon this universality (ie applicable to all equally) and this defiance, he might have appreciated the utter fallacy of his so called “my freedom” argument. For, in an acutely adversarial process as obtains in National Assembly debates etc, it cannot be permissible that each elected member (all 65 of them) was to be entitled to arrogate unto him/herself the limits of their own “freedom”.
For plainly, if such freedom is Nandlall’s, it is equally the freedom of all the other 64 members. What kind of a Darwinite philosophy is that? I would ask Mr. Nandlall – whose is the authority or power to decide what is a “known, recognized or legitimate rule, regulation, order ….” by which only your so called freedom can be taken away, abridged or limited? Yours or the Speaker’s?
The Constitution – makers in their wisdom have created the regulatory – authoritative persona of a presiding Speaker (article 166). By the Speaker’s ruling, what is not hitherto a known, recognized, or legitimate rule, ipso facto and ipso jure becomes known and recognized and legitimate (I elaborated on this aspect in my previous letter). The Constitution itself has created the Speaker as Judge, Jury and executioner.
Surely, as a practicing lawyer, Mr. Nandlall must be aware of what by law and practice alike, “presiding” means, and its incidents. As a presiding Magistrate for some twelve years I, most certainly, am acutely aware. And I daresay, those twelve years has imbued in me virtues and facilities of legal analysis and articulation about which no training in “parliamentary matters” (whatever that is intended to mean and convey to your readership) can compare, or, could have prepared me, to research and give a considered opinion as to what the words “rules of procedure of the Assembly” embraces. Editor, obstinacy can be both a lawyer’s virtue, as it can be a vice. Mr. Nandlall has persisted in the error of his conclusion. It is lawyer to err; it is inexcusable to preserve in demonstrable error. These are my last words on this matter.
Maxwell. E. Edwards

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