Personally I think the Speaker should do the right and honourable thing (pending the decision of the committee of privileges) and vacate the chair of Speaker. Morality and dignity should not have to be forced, negotiated and the subject of legal gymnastics – Grace Fuller
The Michael Carrington saga has shifted a gear.
Last week when Speaker of the House recused himself from the Chair to allow Deputy Speaker Mara Thompson to refer his matter – Speaker of the House Michael Carrington MUST Go! – to the moribund Committee of Privileges, there was high expectation the sordid matter of Griffiths Vs. Carrington was being ‘processed’ in a dignified manner by the highest Court in the land. To the surprise of many Carrington presented himself today to carryon business as usual in the House on the pretext that he is still the Speaker of the House. Carrington’s decision aroused the passion of the perennially taciturn Prime Minister who in a passionate defence of the Speaker, on the floor of what was once an august chamber, questioned how a personal matter was being used to bar the Speaker from doing his job.
Obviously the decision by the Prime Minister to support Speaker Carrington is politically motivated. He continues to lead a weak government with a 2-seat majority which leaves no wiggle room to flex the muscle of the office of Prime Minister, an office Barbadians have come to regard as primus inter pares, until now. Seven years in office and what we have is a deeply polarized country which has forced national priories to be forgotten.
Surely any 7 year old knows that individuals who hold an office of public trust must be sensitive to activities undertaken in a private capacity which may injure the office and is therefore open to censure based on the breath of the breech. Employees of most organizations are aware if codes of conduct are contravened there is a consequence one has to endure.
If we accept the House of Assemble is the highest court in the land responsible for enacting laws and shaping government policies. Further, if we accept a key responsibility of Speaker is to maintain the integrity of parliament then one is left to surmise the decision by Carrington to fight for his job supports the growing view that Barbados has become a banana republic or in Bajan vernacular, poorakey.
How on this earth and anywhere in the galaxy a Speaker of a House of Assembly in the Commonwealth – acting in a private capacity as lawyer has to be ordered by a High Court to pay $200,000.0 plus to a wheel chair bound client withheld for 2 years, and he has the effrontery to defend his right to preside over the highest court in the land. To compound the problem, the prime minister and other members of parliament see the matter through politically tinted lenses while ignoring what is obviously wrong by the loosest value set.
Then there is the wider issue of governance. The Opposition correctly ‘walked out’ of parliament to demonstrate opposition to the decision by the Speaker – which sides with public opinion – but the government continued to crunch out laws in our system of democracy. What flavour of democracy can this be?
The BU household weeps for our once proud little country.
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