Dear Editor,
I have read Speaker of the House of Assembly, Mr Ralph Ramkarran’s response (‘Standing Order 103(8) was not violated because it did not apply’ SN, August 5) to my letter published in your edition of August 1, 2009 (‘This was an obvious and serious violation of the Standing Orders’).
I wish to publicly concede the point made by the Honourable Speaker about Standing Order 103(8).
The issue then becomes one of his failure to apply Standing Order 57(2) of the National Assembly which clearly states that “the Member in charge… may move that the Bill… be read a second time, provided that copies of the report of the… Special Select Committee… have been made available to Members for at least seven days before the day on which the motion is made.”
Since the Report of the Special Select Committee on the Local Authorities (Elections) (Amendment) Bill 2009 was only made available to members of the National Assembly on the day of the sitting on July 30, 2009, it was a breach of Standing Order 57(2) to allow a motion for the bill to be read a second time on the same day.
I do not wish to make any comment on the remarks by the Speaker which do not bear on the strictly technical matter of upholding the relevant Standing Order of the National Assembly on the treatment of the specific bill. I am prepared to deal with those remarks in a political context.
Yours faithfully,
Winston S Murray, MP
