On a Resolution of No Confidence in Speaker Alvin Smith

Fred Mitchell
MP Fox Hill

12th November 2007

We have come to this Mr. Chairman simply because the Speaker of the House could not listen, does not seem to understand what his role is and does not have the judicial temperament that is required for the job he has.   He should apologize and resign forthwith.

Some have asked why the Opposition has brought this resolution when they know that the Government has the numbers and will not support it.  In fact, we have seen quite a perverse act here this morning where they have been allowed to change an entire resolution to make positive what is clearly negative; to try to make wrong right.

One thing we know is that truth will out.  Facts are stubborn and the Bahamian people will judge for themselves what the truth is.  This Speaker stands condemned.

If you were an ordinary citizen on the outside of this House and the language used on 22nd October by the Member for North Abaco was used, you would have grounds and cause for complaint to a peace officer for insulting and abusive language to the annoyance of any person.  That is a criminal offence in this jurisdiction.

This forum is not the barroom.  This is supposed to be the highest form of debate in the country.  Mays Parliamentary procedure at its 21st edition says on unparliamentary language: “Good temper and moderation are the characteristics of parliamentary language. Parliamentary language is never more desirable than when a Member is canvassing the opinions and conduct of his opponents in debate.”

Mays also says this: “Expressions which are unparliamentary and call for prompt interference include inter alia: “Abusive and insulting language of a nature likely to create disorder.  The Speaker has said in this connection that whether a word should be regarded as unparliamentary depends on the context in which it is used.  For example, expressions which are unparliamentary when applied to individuals are not always so considered when applied to a whole party…

“A member is not allowed to use unparliamentary words by the device of putting them in someone else’s mouth.”

Clearly then what is abusive and insulting depends on the context, and  when you read the transcript of what transpired in this House on the 22nd October, the Member for North Abaco was clearly insulting and abusive.  No resolution moved or passed by the Government that says otherwise will change those facts.  He was quite simply out of control, and he must be brought back into control.

These are post independence rules.  We are establishing our own precedents and in the context of the debate at the time, the words were clearly abusive and insulting and designed to be so.

This is really less about the Speaker and more about the Member for North Abaco and his conduct in this place which has been contemptuous for years.

The real question is why would the now Speaker allow his reputation to be sullied by defending the indefensible.

If you were a private citizen, I said before that you would have recourse to the criminal law.  You could also have recourse to the civil law.  But in Parliament there is no such recourse available to you.  What is expected is that if a man or woman holds the Chair of Speaker, that individual should know when enough is enough.  Mays talks about language that is likely to cause disorder.  The facts is the words used by the Member did cause disorder and it took the Speaker standing to his feet at the time on the 22nd October to bring the House back to order.

The Member for North Abaco himself recognized that he had gone too far by saying on his feet that he did not intend to abuse the Member for Farm Road and Centreville, but the fact is he did so abuse him.  Clearly this offends the rules.  The member can beg pardon, turn himself in and withdraw the comments and apologize. If he refuses as he has then the rules are clear in this House when the words are drawn to the attention of the Speaker, they must be expunged from the record.

We did not even get to that, however.  In fact when you read the transcript of the session on Monday 5th November, the Speaker did not even let the Member for Farm Road and Centreville make his point.  He simply anticipated the arguments, said he had read the transcript and that there was nothing he saw that was unparliamentary.  The very least that the Speaker should have done, whether we agreed or disagreed with his ultimate ruling, was to hear the other side.  Hear the point at the first available opportunity.  Had the point been heard, we would not have been here discussing this today.

Allow the Member for Farm Road and Centreville to put his case and then we could go from there.  No opportunity was allowed.  The transcript is clear.  The Member was stopped dead in his tracks and disorder broke out in the House.

So again, why do we do this?  The only recourse the minority has when the rules are infringed by the very presiding officer who is sworn to protect the rules is to bring a substantive motion to condemn the behavior and hope that the Speaker in the circumstances will have the grace to resile from his position or resign.  Even if the outcome is unsuccessful in terms of votes, the Speaker's reputation can never recover from this.  His actions are damaged goods.  Wherever he goes having ruled that wutless is a parliamentary word, the word can now be applied to all of his actions both now and in the future.  There goes the Speaker of wutless actions.  Why he wants to go down in history like this no one knows.

And so we have come to the high court of Parliament and the even higher court of public opinion to put the case that the Speaker in the circumstances must be condemned for his actions which offend the rules of the House and destroy the rights and privileges of the minority.  And one saying goes: you today, me tomorrow.  And what goes around comes around.

And they can talk about what the former Speaker the Member for South Eleuthera did in this place before.  Whatever they say, no vote of no confidence was ever brought by the FNM in Opposition against the former Speaker.  FNM Speaker’s have that unique distinction.

The Government last week did not allow the Opposition in this place to make known its findings with regard to the consultations on the Juries Amendment Bill.  And I see its Attorney General continues to wield a campaign of propaganda and disinformation about what the Bill will do.  But during that round of consultations we were faced with two individuals of prominence in the country who chastised MPs for the conduct of the House.  That could only have come as a result of the actions of the Member of Parliament for North Abaco on 22nd October.  That was the last memory in the minds of the public.  One religious leader said that he thought that the conduct of the House was so reprehensible that he believed it should be taken off television because it was not the right thing for children to see.  Another trade union leader said that she thought that the conduct was disgraceful and it did not set the right example.

All of us struggle with what is appropriate conduct, save for the Member for North Abaco, when trying to get our ideas out and to compete in the fierce market of political ideas.  We have rules to define our behavior but we cannot define exactly what rudeness is.  What we all know is: when we see it we know that is it.  And by any measure in the world that display on 22nd October was simply rudeness, incivility at its best.  Conduct unbecoming a Prime Minister in the House of Assembly and the actions of the Speaker should have followed without this minority even asking for protection from the abuse.

It was personal: a wutless crew… Christie you ought to be ashamed of yourself.   Even the Speaker admitted that by the Member for North Abaco saying Christie, that was a breach of the rules but the Speaker cannot read that in isolation.  The Speaker seemed to shrug it off because that is precisely the point; he called the Member for Farm Road and Centreville in his personal capacity shameless.  Beside it not being true.  It is patently offensive and abusive.

And then he applied the word wutless, the Bahamianism, not the Standard English, making it even more contemptuous.  He described us as a crew and it is on that narrow point that the proposed amending resolution seeks to get around the offence.  A crew is a group of people.  He was talking abut the government, and the people in the government.  In other words, we as individuals are not of any worth.  That is clearly abusive and insulting. You cannot get around that by simply defining your way out of the problem, by saying now when I say this I don’t mean what it means, I mean something else.  This would simply mean I could come in here fire off a dirty word and then say now what I mean is something different. It is still a curse word.

Mays is also clear on that you cannot put words into someone else's mouth and then seek to escape the rule by using that device.  As in the threat that I would say I have failed thee, I should get more major punishment.  That is a literary device which clearly points to the use of clever language to go at the Member for Farm Road and Centreville.  It was a threat; a call to action the equivalent of Henry of Anjou’s who will rid me of this bothersome priest.

I said to the teacher who spoke to us that Parliament is supposed to be the freest forum in the country, where free speech is absolutely protected.  They have to think of their own meetings when heated words are exchanged, so we have to be careful how we prescribe what happens in parliament. But there are limits and on the 22nd October the limit was breached by none other than the member for North Abaco.  That is how we got here. Again, why the Speaker would want to defend that misbehavior is a mystery.

If the Member for North Abaco had been in primary school, the teacher would have washed his mouth out with soap and water, taken him to the woodshed, used the tamarind switch.  No doubt about it. Control your temper, he would have been told.

And what interests me Mr. Speaker, is that as long as the Member for North Abaco is not in this House things go smoothly.  The other members on his side know how to behave it appears.  But as soon as he arrives then the whole system goes wonky and out of kilter.

The narrow point then is simply this: the Speaker ought to have heard the point.  He did not.  It is clear that he did not hear the point of the Member for Farm Road and Centreville.  He had an obligation to hear the point.  He could then rule.  We might disagree with his ruling but he must hear the point.  He did not.  We have no other recourse against a Speaker who does not obey the rules but to bring this resolution.

We cannot agree with the Government’s amendment.  It is materially inaccurate, and they can try like the characters in Animal Farm to make right that which is wrong as much as they like; it cannot stand.  The Speaker by his own actions stands condemned and must apologize to the House and resign forthwith.

Thank you.