Sorry Mr Speaker

Mr Sinanan did not ban any protest or protest march in the Square on Friday. In fact it was the Port-of-Spain City Corporation headed by Mayor Murchison Brown who granted permission for the protest march then withdrew it because of the sitting of the House.

What is significant about the confusion that arose in this instance is that it was only after there was an uproar over the Corporation’s last minute refusal that the Corporation wrote to the Clerk of the House to enquire whether the Speaker had any objection to the protest march in the Square and whether permission should be granted or not granted. We are informed that the Speaker’s office responded and recommended that permission be granted only if the Corporation is satisfied that activity in the Square would not disturb or disrupt the proceedings in the House. But the jurisdiction resides with the Corporation and not the Speaker who only intervenes if the noise in the Square disrupts the proceedings in Parliament.

On Friday Mayor Brown defended the refusal of permission by stating that it was based on a policy instituted by the late Mr Hector Mc Clean when he sat as Speaker under the UNC. Mc Clean had ruled that there should be no activity in the Square that would disturb the sittings of Parliament.

It appears that when Mr Mc Clean was Speaker permission for use of the Square became a collaborative affair between the Corporation and the Speaker’s office, and it was a requirement that the Corporation before giving permission for activities in the Square liaise with the Parliament to find out about the parliamentary schedule of sittings and depending on this schedule permission for activities in the square was granted or not granted. But the jurisdiction remained with the Corporation and if the Corporation granted permission and the activities in the Square disturbed or disrupted parliamentary proceedings the Speaker then had the right to call on those causing the disruption to desist.

Our editorial comment was never intended to embarrass the Speaker or to unfairly criticise him but to raise questions of public interest with respect to jurisdiction in a matter of great public concern — the construction of a smelter plant that is a genuine worry to environmentalists.

The fact that the protest march was arranged by Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj which bestowed on it a clear political agenda does not excuse the Port-of-Spain Corporation’s abdication of its role in the matter and by extension allowing blame for the refusal of permission to be shifted wrongly to the Speaker.

We very much regret that the Speaker has been blamed and criticised for something he neither did nor said in this matter. It however gives us the opportunity to have this matter with respect to the use of the Square in general and during sittings of Parliament in particular be clarified for the guidance of the general public.