The Clerk to the National Assembly has sought, in a letter to the press, to answer my article last Sunday in which I contended that the Speaker must convene the National Assembly now. My argument was that the National Assembly, when adjourned without a date being fixed, must sit on the next sitting day pursuant to Standing Order 8(1).
The word ‘convene’ may be causing some difficulty. The Speaker cannot actually ‘convene’ by fixing a date for the sitting. As the Clerk says, and as I pointed out last week, he has no power to do so. By virtue of Standing Order 8(1), the Speaker must instruct the Clerk to ‘convene’ a sitting of the National Assembly, that is to say, to administratively set up a sitting on the ‘next sitting day’ in accordance with Standing Order 8(1). The Speaker has no power to fix any other date other than the ‘next sitting day’.
The Clerk says: “When matters are not provided for in our Rules, we refer to practice and precedents.” But the matter is provided for in our rules, namely, Standing Order 8(1), on which I had relied and to which the Clerk’s long letter makes no reference. This Standing Order provides that: (i) the Assembly may sit every day except Saturday and Sunday; and (ii) the Assembly is adjourned to the next sitting day unless it decides otherwise. Had this rule been analyzed before, there