Dear Editor,
I refer to Mr Winston Murray’s second letter in your edition of August 6, 2009 under the caption ‘There was a breach of Standing Order 57(2).’
I answered on August 5 Mr Murray’s first accusation made in his letter of August 1 that parliamentary procedures were violated in the debate on the Local Government (Elections) (Amendment) Bill. In doing so I analyzed his argument at great length and in substantial detail in order to ensure that the public is not misled into believing that the passage of the bill was flawed in some way. By his letter of August 6 he conceded that I was right but now raises another point. I cannot be sure that if I answer this new argument that Mr Murray will not seek out yet another to raise. We cannot go on like this in the press about the business and procedures of the National Assembly. I will answer an occasional criticism but I will not engage in a running debate.
To be sure, these are also matters of public interest. But the place where these issues should be determined is in the National Assembly, where they can be reported on by the press, and not in the press. There are procedures to facilitate such a determination which Mr Murray knows about and can employ if he wishes. Until such time as the National Assembly rules, the legislation complied with all procedures.
I have to say that no one’s interest is served by defending procedures in the National Assembly if they turn out to be wrong. No one has or should have any proprietary interest in the National Assembly. It belongs to the people of Guyana whose business it conducts and whom we all serve. They expect the best that we can deliver and that is why they have put us there but, as humans, we are not right all the time. Mr Murray is aware that in the past he raised a procedural argument in a matter, without giving me prior notice, and I ruled against him. He may recall that, having reconsidered the matter, I came to the conclusion that I was wrong and that he was right and that I admitted my error at the next sitting, having advised the opposition beforehand, and asked the government to recommit the matter so that the error could be corrected. This was done. I am not aware that it was ever done before. If the National Assembly has made a procedural error, it can and ought to be corrected. This is in the interest of all and should not be used for one upmanship purposes. But these matters have to be raised and resolved in the National Assembly.
Also, I am very much tempted to use as a ground for not replying to Mr Murray his refusal to explain the logic of his ambivalent attitude to the Standing Orders, with which he rightly insists that the National Assembly should comply, on the one hand, but which he joins in violating and suggests that he will answer me “in a political context,” on the other hand. Am I to believe that the Standing Orders were violated by Mr Murray and his party in a “political context” and that such a context either permits, justifies or will exonerate the violation?
Yours faithfully,
Ralph Ramkarran
Speaker of the National Assembly
