New Speaker of the National Assembly Raphael Trotman has sounded out members of the media with a view to addressing their concerns with regard to Parliamentary coverage and has announced his commitment to implementing the recommendations of the Sir Michael Davies report on parliamentary reform.
On the invitation of the Speaker, members of the media attended a luncheon in the Parliamentarians’ Lounge yesterday.
At the luncheon, the Speaker, together with the Clerk of the National Assembly Sherlock Isaacs and other staff heard some of the media’s concerns. The Speaker and Clerk then undertook to make the accommodations for coverage of especially lengthy sittings more comfortable for members of the media.
“The whole thrust [of the media engagement] is to move the National Assembly into the 21st Century,” said Speaker Trotman.
Taking immediate action, the Speaker instructed his staff to document the suggestions of the members of the media who spoke of the need to have better viewing access of the members as they spoke in the debates. He took members of the media on a walkabout in the Parliament Chamber for a first hand feel of what the media were concerned about with regards to seating and the position of cameras.
The Speaker said that he and his staff would consider a request from mostly television stations to have the National Communications Network record the presentations in Parliament and provide a feed to the other television stations, so that there would not be a cluster of television cameras competing for limited space in an already cramped chamber.
On the complaints that sometimes persons from the media are turned away from committee meetings after they would have been invited to those, the Speaker and the Clerk explained that some of the meetings might be private. He said that they would undertake to properly inform media houses of the nature of the issues to be discussed and whether or not those meetings would be open to the public. He further said that the committees will exercise their discretion and prerogative to ask persons from the media to leave the meeting if sensitive matters come up for discussion, albeit temporarily.
Trotman said that given the concerns about lengthy speeches in the House, he is of a mind to ask that members curtail or group their speeches and to not be repetitive. “It is my hope that by 9 pm we could be out of here. But we have to give latitude to some of the speakers,” he said.
He also hopes to persuade MPs and Parliamentary committees to make field visits to various locations in which they have an interest and that they would work to accommodate the media on these visits.
The Speaker said too that he has a concern about the shutting down of the vehicular traffic around Parliament Buildings whenever there is a sitting and said that he will speak to the Commissioner of Police with a view to reconfiguring the arrangements that the Police would put in place so that it would be less stressful on the public.
On the reform of the National Assembly, the Speaker said that he was intrigued by the recommendations of Sir Michael Davies after his study of the Parliament and said that he will be pushing to have these implemented. “I would like to push for it with the help of the staff but it requires the support of the Government,” Trotman said.
He acknowledged that his predecessor Ralph Ramkarran was similarly adamant about the implementation of the recommendations of Sir Michael.
The Davies Report drew attention to the fact that “meetings of the Assembly are entirely at the whim of the Executive”; that both the staffing and the budget of the National Assembly are controlled by the Administration; and that the work of the Committees “is subject to frustration by the Executive.” At the same time, it noted that the Administration “allows the opposition few opportunities to debate policy or to consider bills.”
The 2005 Davies Report also criticized the practice of the submission of parliamentary Order Papers to the Office of the President which, it stated, “can and does strike out questions and motions which the Office of the President does not like.”
According to the Report, “if Opposition Members cannot ask the questions they would wish to ask they will abandon parliamentary process in favour of other action, as they have done in recent years.”
