Former House Speaker calls on Parliamentarians to show more decorum

DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

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House Speak­er Nizam Mo­hammed is call­ing on Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans to show more deco­rum while en­gag­ing in ban­ter dur­ing de­bates. 

Mo­hammed made the ap­peal yes­ter­day as he sought to re­spond to two in­ci­dents which oc­curred dur­ing a de­bate in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on Fri­day. 

In one in­ci­dent, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie, SC, was caught mak­ing a pur­port­ed­ly deroga­to­ry re­mark to­wards the Op­po­si­tion bench while his mi­cro­phone was not switched off. 

In the oth­er, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was heard threat­en­ing to “cuff down” Diego Mar­tin North East MP Colm Im­bert for point­ing to her as the ses­sion was wind­ing up. 

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Mo­hammed, who served as House Speak­er be­tween 1987 and 1991, sug­gest­ed that such con­duct was un­be­com­ing of Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, who are ex­pect­ed to be role mod­els in so­ci­ety. 

“Any such per­son with­out ex­cep­tion must un­der­stand the need to be an ex­em­plar and at all times pub­lic ut­ter­ances and con­duct and be­hav­iour should nev­er be­long to the gut­ter,” Mo­hammed said. 

That, to my mind, is aid­ing and abet­ting crime and crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties in the coun­try. It is un­der­min­ing the less-than-suf­fi­cient ef­forts that are be­ing made to tack­le the burn­ing is­sue of crime in the coun­try,” he added. 

Mo­hammed re­ferred to an in­ci­dent sev­er­al months ago in which for­mer prime min­is­ter and cur­rent Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West MP Stu­art Young was caught on a mi­cro­phone re­fer­ring to then-op­po­si­tion leader Per­sad-Bisses­sar as a “za­mi”, a lo­cal deroga­to­ry word used for les­bians. 

Young was re­ferred to Par­lia­ment’s Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee but apol­o­gised be­fore his con­duct was re­viewed. 

“There­fore, she has to rein in those un­der her charge and un­der­stand that col­lec­tive­ly they have to in­spire and by their con­duct en­cour­age stan­dards that are sore­ly need­ed,” Mo­hammed said. 

He sug­gest­ed that if such con­duct con­tin­ues, Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans could no longer be con­sid­ered fit to be role mod­els for chil­dren. 

“If Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans con­tin­ue with such con­duct, they will then lose moral au­thor­i­ty to tell the school chil­dren how to be­have,” he said. 

Mo­hammed not­ed that cur­rent House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh can seek to rep­ri­mand the con­duct dur­ing the next sit­ting in Par­lia­ment if he missed the com­ments dur­ing the last de­bate. 

How­ev­er, while he ad­mit­ted that the House Speak­er is re­quired to mar­shal de­bates, such pow­er does not ex­empt mem­bers from self-reg­u­la­tions. 

“It is not the sole re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the speak­er. The speak­er takes the ini­tia­tive, and there must be col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the mem­bers of the house,” Mo­hammed said. 

In a brief tele­phone in­ter­view, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed echoed the for­mer House Speak­er’s view on the need for im­prove­ment by per­sons in pub­lic life. 

“We have to be very care­ful with how we al­low our emo­tions to get the bet­ter of us. We must stop short of say­ing things that will cause us to lose cred­it, re­spect, re­gard, and states­man­ship,” he said. 

“Yes, you could have a slip of the tongue. But a slip of the tongue be­comes un­ac­cept­able when it starts to be­come a norm,” he said.

How­ev­er, he sought to dis­tin­guish be­tween Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Je­re­mie’s con­duct. 

He not­ed that Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s com­ments were in re­sponse to an­tag­o­nism from Im­bert. 

“She got emo­tion­al, and she replied to him. She’s en­ti­tled to get emo­tion­al as well. She is al­so hu­man af­ter all,” he said. 

Deal­ing with Je­re­mie’s com­ments, he sug­gest­ed that a com­plaint from the Op­po­si­tion would be dif­fi­cult to pur­sue as it did not ap­pear to be di­rect­ed at a par­tic­u­lar mem­ber. 

He al­so called on Singh to be­gin to de­fine his tenure as House Speak­er, as he sug­gest­ed that he (Singh) should seek to dis­tance him­self from the over­ly par­ti­san role tak­en by for­mer of­fice hold­ers, in­clud­ing his im­me­di­ate pre­de­ces­sor, Bridgid An­nisette-George. 

“You can be gra­cious and grate­ful for the role, the po­si­tion and the op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve, but there comes a time you need to set the tone and de­fine the role,” he said. 

“He needs to set the tone of the cham­ber in or­der for us to get this right for the next five years,” he added.