The Speaker has spoken! But what she said is awful and disrespectful of her colleagues. It is a contentious and pretentious monologue that leaves doubt as to who wrote it. It is not the expression of an official in that capacity. Neither does it live up to expectations.
In a situation like this, we are looking for cordiality and formality in order to arrive at a common good. It is not worth the time taken, or the paper it is written on, to fight in a letter. And that is what the author of the letter fails to realize. The content of the letter does not respond to the issue and raises more questions than answers.
So what is the problem? The Opposition has complained, with several references, that rulings from the Chair have been unfair or biased. To them the action from the Chair exhibits behavior that seems to suggest that she thinks that because of her association with the ruling party her rulings should be favorable to them. Her actions have become a pattern — so they have decided not to put up with it any more. They therefore walked out in protest.
A house divided will fall! But there are rules. However, it seems that the Chair is not conversant with common parliamentary rules and procedures — so conduct in the House is a botched “hit and miss” procedure. Business in the House rather than being conducted with cordiality is contrived and partisan. That is why there are rules for the individual conduct of every House. The Opposition understands this and further accepts the long and tried rules of parliamentary practice set out in Erskine May’s Parliamentary Practice and Procedures and the Robert’s Rules of Procedure.
There is no reason for a Speaker to make up rules or ignore those that are there for her guidance. If used properly they would avoid the disturbance that caused that type of vengeance expressed in her letter to the public. The letter is like“ghetto talk” using proper English. It does not speak to or point to real remedies. It is simply verbose; serves no useful purpose; and is unbecoming of a person of that Office.
The contents of the letter and the Speaker’s attitude in the House are combative. They prevent the development of useful “cut and thrust” in debate. In a small House in order to air the issues properly there must be time for the Leader of the Opposition to be heard. And in fairness to the cause — a Speaker who is not elected by popular vote should not try to fetter the efforts of the Elected Members.
Apart from the naked application of the raw rules, a good Speaker must act like a good Umpire. That function requires the Speaker to uses his/her best judgment as a guide for his/her rulings. Our Speaker must begin to rule based on the mood of the House and the dynamics of the debate. It appears that this Speaker’s rulings are based on her affiliation with the party in power because most adverse rulings go against the Opposition. But what do the people of Anguilla want? Foremost they want fairness in debate; a House that has a competent Speaker; and expect their Representatives to be able to debate under an arrangement that is amicable and cordial to all involved. Unfortunately, the Speaker’s letter does not generate that sentiment. It is as friendly as a “call-to-arms”. No need for that unless you think that you are a bully. Forget the letter! We want to raise the bar! We are not here to fight. This was opportune time to show some class. She could have, instead of publishing the ”battle hymn”, requested an informal meeting and let the seven of them thrash out, in a sober, non-combative mood, how they are going to run things in the future. The letter is nonsense written large. It makes no attempt to change anything. It is argument in place of improvement.
It was the language of the letter that gave the secret away. In the context of our situation, legal courtroom expressions such as “I am putting it to you” means very little in terms of Speaker’s jargon. The Speaker should put the Rules of the House on the table. We must distinguish wrong parliamentary procedure from what it is, and tell the difference between a woman and child and a woman with child.
We should be able to do this without trying to display our knowledge of legalese used in the wrong context.
But what is gleaned from the verbiage? Well, nothing progressive! It is merely a volley of words, without the willingness to correct or compromise. It offers no help for the future; shows someone bogged down in pomposity; and in need of help from a different quarter that condemns Anguilla to remain in the pit of poor parliamentary management.
But what makes the reaction in the Speaker’s correspondence a charade is that she pays little attention to concepts of representative democracy. This Speaker has never been elected and seems afraid of the democratic process. The recent fiasco confirms what appears to be the common approach of the AUM Party, namely, that the rules are for everybody else but not for them. The AUF rejects that approach. The AUF’s position is that we must build institutions that function on rationally derived and well-established procedures. For the AUF the time has come for crudeness in politics to be replaced.
So what are we going to do? We have now seen the results of poor Speakership. Can we rely on the slow political growth of Anguilla, or should we use legislation to create the remedies we need now?
