BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – THE Federal Parliament of St. Kitts and Nevis will convene tomorrow (May 14) and two of the substantive matters on the agenda are the election of a new Speaker and a Deputy Speaker.
Speaking yesterday (May 12) at a conference held in the Parliamentary Lounge at Government Headquarters, Prime Minister Dr. the Hon. Timothy Harris announced that the individuals nominated and most likely to be elected as Speaker and Deputy Speaker are popular businessman Franklin Brand and Senator the Hon. Michael Perkins, respectively.
Dr. Harris informed that the first substantive matter would be election of the Speaker of the House of Assembly.
“The Members of the Assembly shall elect a Speaker in accordance with Section 32 of the Constitution. Our nominee in this regard is Mr. Franklyn Brand, Esquire, a well-known businessman. The Speaker, on his election, will then be properly robed and will take over the Speaker’s Chair.”
Following the Speaker’s election, Dr. Harris explained that it would be followed by that of the Deputy, who would be elected in accordance with Section 32 of the Constitution.
“...I am pleased to announce, as we did before, that any nominee in this regard is Senator Mr. Michael Perkins. This, in our view, represents the fresh start in honouring and respecting the National Assembly.”
In his opening address, the Prime Minister explicated that his Cabinet was pleased that the Governor-General has summoned the Parliament, which is the first sitting since its dissolution on January 26, 2015 and the holding of General Elections on February 16, 2015.
Those elections, he said, produced a Team Unity Government with a five-year mandate and that he and his Cabinet had pledged to uphold the Constitution and the Laws of the land; a pledge and an oath which they hold sacred.
“I am pleased to report that the date set for the convening of Parliament falls well within the Constitution and the National Assembly’s Act, Chapter 2.01. Sections 46 and 23, respectively, of the Constitution and the National Assembly Act are germane in this regard,” Dr. Harris said.
He also explained that the law provides a 90-day window for the first sitting of the National Assembly from the holding of a general election of representatives if the Parliament were dissolved, as it was in January last.
Dr. Harris categorically stated that his Team Unity Government has since complied with the Constitution, the Laws of the land and the procedural requirements of the Standing Orders of the National Assembly relating to the Notice and Order Paper for tomorrow’s sitting of the National Assembly.
He took a swipe at the former Labour Party Administration, insinuating that its actions had seriously imperilled the requirements of the Constitution.
“The irregular practice by the former regime in allowing the entire life of the last National Assembly to be pursued without abiding by the constitutional requirement of Section 32 for the appointment of a Deputy Speaker and, again, in the appointment of Richard Skerritt as Deputy Speaker in the day to have him removed in the very night, thereby triggering the vacancy in the office of Deputy Speaker which his appointment was intended to cure. That situation will be a situation of the past!
“In our view, that was a tragedy and a telltale signs to the depths of disrespect and disdain to which the National Assembly would be brought by an insecure administration.”
To lend further credence to his statement, the Prime Minister said the last Parliament had become marred by illegal attempts to impose an Attorney-General on the people and the Federation country at the tail-end of the debate on the Senators Bill, adding that “the Senators Bill was the heavy hand of a leader intent on achieving his way against the will of the elected majority”.
He however reminded that the High Court and the Court of Appeal had declared those matters null, void and of no effect.
“Our collective conscience cried out when the appointment of the Attorney-General nullified by the Court in the day was resurrected by night by an obdurate and insensitive regime with no moral minimum, no sense of decency and, obviously, no decorum.”
He deemed as abuse, many of the actions perpetrated by the former Administration.
“The serial abuses that the sanctity and integrity of our Parliament and, by extension, the electorate were at their egregious worse when the Government used every rouse to delay the Motion of No Confidence.
“If the parliamentary principle known to man was violated to satisfy the megalomaniac propensity of the country’s misleader, when we thought it could get more worse under the ex-regime, it put the democratisation of the Parliament to even more flame when on January 16, 2015 it summoned an emergency sitting without proper notice to Opposition Members, all in the attempt to foist boundary changes on the people of our dear land.
“Thankfully, we in Team Unity went all the way...all the way to the Privy Council for justice! Four days before General Elections the law Lords delivered the justice that the people of St. Kitts and Nevis deserve.”
That judgment, he emphasised, convinced more decent people to vote for Team Unity.
