“Speaker shocked at injunction – Major vows to defend freedom of Parliament”- The Tribune

Excerpt from this article; “House Speaker Dr. Kendall Major said that he was both ‘astonished’ and ‘offended’ by the recent granting of an injunction which bars members of Parliament from disclosing Save The bay’s confidential information during proceedings, calling it a ‘pre-emptive’ onslaught against the independence of the lower chamber.

Mr. Major said the move attempts to usurp the Authority of the Speaker and is contemptuous to the House of Assembly, he stood ready to have persons brought before the bar of the House if necessary in defense of Parliament and its freedoms.”

It would seem that Dr. Major seeks to defend Article 53(1) of the Constitution which states, “Without prejudice to the generality of Article 52 (1) of the Constitution subject to provisions of paragraph (2) of this Article, Parliament may by law determine the privileges immunities ad power of the Senate and the House of Assembly and the members thereof.”

So Parliament, by law, will determine these privileges but by whose law if the matters cannot be reviewed by the Judiciary?  This leaves this to the discretion of the Speaker of the House as to just how far he would allow ‘parliamentary privilege’ to extend before it loses its true intention and meaning, at the very moment he has allowed for it to stretch outside the walls of the House of Assembly and slip into the private lives of ordinary citizens of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, this surely could not have been the intent when this Article was drafted.

If the Speaker of the House takes this position, then who is left to protect the ordinary citizen, as the Speaker and the rest of his colleagues have seen a ruling by the Judiciary protecting the ordinary citizen as “offensive.” 

While persons such a Damien Gomez also voice their opinion against the Supreme Court Justice’s ruling saying “Don’t play politics with our constitution”, really?  Is this what was done? He then goes on to explain that “we have to take the separation of power doctrine seriously” and I ask him did he explain this to the hon. V Alfred Grey when he made the two phone calls to the Island Administrator. 

This back and forth would be comical if it did not impact on such serious matters, this one being the total lack of concern and/or respect for the basic right to privacy of others by a government that has interpreted the constitution to make it all seem right and then turned around and warned others to “not play politics” with it.

The Progressive Liberal Party fails for one reason, it is within their nature.

END