Rules, Laws & Conventions are Indispensable

by Sir Arthur Foulkes

In a letter published in The Tribune last month, Cynthia Daley took issue with me on a number of things including my objection to the attempt by Prime Minister Perry Christie to have Health Minister Dr. Bernard Nottage address the House of Assembly in session.

I reject Ms. Daley’s criticism on that point because the separation of the two houses of parliament is well-established by law and convention and it would have been wrong, even if the Opposition had given its consent, for a Minister of Government sitting in the Senate to address the elected chamber in session.

If Ms. Daley were a regular reader of this column she would know that I do not hesitate to criticize both political parties on issues which go beyond partisan politics and have to do with the system itself.

For instance, I have repeatedly criticized both parties for downgrading the Senate by using it as a training ground and showcase for political novices rather than the mature upper chamber it was intended to be.

I agree with Ms. Daley that it was regrettable Governor General Sir Clifford Darling did not open the first session of parliament after the FNM’s victory in 1992.

The office of Governor General should be above partisan politics and should be a symbol of unity for the nation. All of the Bahamians who have so far occupied that office – from Sir Milo Butler to Arthur Hanna -- have done the nation proud in this respect.

Ms. Daley mentioned that former Speaker Italia Johnson left the Chair on two occasions to speak from the floor of the House of Assembly. I recall only one other occasion when that was done -- by Speaker Sir Alvin Braynen some 30 years ago.

Even though there does not seem to be any rule against it, Ms. Daley was quite right to say it should not be done. It is a well-established convention, and May’s (Erskine May’s Parliamentary Practice) makes it clear that the Speaker should never address the House from the floor. That, obviously, is to maintain the impartiality of the Speaker.

Ms. Daley accused me of taking “a mean-spirited swipe” at Speaker Oswald Ingraham. That is an accusation I totally reject. I have criticized Speaker Ingraham on several occasions but I have never been mean-spirited towards him.

On the contrary, I have been careful to avoid disparaging characterizations where Mr. Ingraham is concerned because he is a fine gentleman whom I hold in high regard. But it is clear that he is not suited to be Speaker of the House of Assembly and to have him in that position is unfair to him, to the House and to the country.

Any fair-minded person watching the proceedings of the House as late as last week would have to come to the same conclusion. Mr. Ingraham is not to be blamed for this; the blame must be put at the feet of Prime Minister Perry Christie and his colleagues for this sad state of affairs.

Incidentally, the chaplain who opened last Wednesday’s session was again allowed to break one of the conventions of the House by standing inside the bar on the green carpet during the scripture reading and prayers.

Only members of the House and the officers who serve them are allowed on the green carpet. Every Speaker in the past has jealously protected this convention. The chaplain is not to blame; the Speaker should instruct him.
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It may seem like nit-picking to some people, but the rules, conventions, rituals, ceremonies, manners and niceties of a society and its institutions are extremely important.

An Australian jurist said many years ago that before we dispense with a particular ritual we should first examine what value it protects. Mindlessly discarding rituals and manners will make the values they protect vulnerable to destructive influences. We this see all around us today as the abandonment of manners leads to loss of respect, and loss of respect leads to contempt for the rights of others, and contempt leads to outright criminality.

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The rules and conventions governing the institutions of the state are indispensable to the preservation of those institutions and to the orderly conduct of the affairs of state. When they are abused with impunity, deleterious effects on the body politic follow with almost mathematical certainty.

The present administration has notoriously neglected and abused these conventions, and the leading serial abuser of cabinet government conventions is Minister of Agriculture and Marine Resources Leslie Miller, aided and abetted by a prime minister who lets him get away with it.

Minister Miller has repeatedly shattered cabinet conventions, primarily in his shameless advocacy of the LNG project and numerous predictions about what the cabinet was going to do and when. His relentless public pressure on cabinet colleagues has been unprecedented in the 43-year history of Bahamian cabinet government.

It is a cardinal sin for a minister to go to the public to curry favour at the expense of his cabinet colleagues and the principle of collective responsibility. Yet Mr. Miller continues to put his colleagues on the spot by openly advocating policies and positions which have not been settled by cabinet.

Mr. Miller was obviously, and rightly, peeved when Attorney General Allyson Maynard Gibson made a statement about the LNG affair, a matter for which he has ministerial responsibility. Questioned by a Guardian reporter he snapped, “Ask Allyson Gibson. It has nothing to do with me.”

But in the next breath Mr. Miller launched a blistering attack on a government corporation which lies in another minister’s portfolio. In a brazen breach of collective responsibility and a shocking display of demagoguery, Mr. Miller accused the Bahamas Electricity Corporation of profiteering on the backs of the Bahamian people.

Mr. Miller, according to The Journal, demanded that BEC absorb losses occasionally to give ordinary Bahamians a break. “And I’m demanding that they do so. Let them take some losses!

“When times are tough, each one of us in society should bear some of the burden that is placed upon us. I do not believe that BEC should simply pass that burden on to the people of the Bahamas. Therefore it’s profiteering.”

That was an attack not only on the corporation but on the Minister who has responsibility for relations with that corporation and it was an attack on the cabinet of which Mr. Miller is a member.

The responsible Minister has been put in the embarrassing position of having to defend his portfolio not from attack by the Opposition nor even by a PLP backbencher but from one of his own cabinet colleagues. He should demand Mr. Miller’s resignation, and failing that he should himself resign.

The place for Mr. Miller to have made this charge and any policy suggestions to rectify it, if he is sincere, is around the cabinet table, nowhere else. BEC is wholly owned by the Government of the Bahamas.

If the cabinet, for whatever reasons, is unable to do what Mr. Miller says, he can go back to the public and blame his colleagues for not looking after the interests of the people. That is an intolerable situation and it is astonishing that Prime Minister Christie has allowed it to obtain for more than a day.

Mr. Miller is an intelligent man and he knows exactly what he is doing. The principles of collective responsibility should be understood by all citizens, by all members of parliament and certainly by all those who sit in cabinet. These principles are encapsulated in the government’s Manual of Cabinet and Ministry Procedure which is available to all on the internet.

If Mr. Miller is allowed to get away with this, the public will have no choice but to conclude that Mr. Christie and his cabinet colleagues either do not care or that they are simply too spineless to do something about it.