During the imbroglio involving the trade unions, the civil services association, Jamaica for Justice and others regarding the Speaker of the House addressing a letter to the Clerk of the House, the nation got mainly noise out of the press releases, articles in the print media and on the talk shows.
If persons were exposed to an area of study which gave them a good understanding of the role and function of the state and the constitution, the noise would have flown over their heads.
Today I spoke with the President of The Senate and he concurred with my analysis of the situation. The President of the Senate is a very experienced lawyer, The Honourable Tom Tavares-Finson OJ, CD, KC, JM. That does not mean he is right in everything that he says but it is clear that many of our leaders need to understand certain basic things about government and governance.
For example, one leader told me that the Clerk of the House is a civil servant and is not answerable to the Speaker. This is false. It was said that the Speaker should apologize publicly to the former Clerk of the House because she wrote a damning letter to her which she made public. There is nothing to confirm that the Speaker made the letter public. There is that petty philosophy that if you write a letter of reprimand to someone and the person is about to leave the organization you cannot say good things about them. This is the government and not some petty friendly relationships.
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| Click to hear the discussion. |
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5 comments:
Both yourself and the senate leader misunderstood what the shouting was about. The speaker of the house cannot reprimand the civil servant without observing due process which requires the speaker to make a complaint and the complaint being investigated and if she is found wanting by the investigation she is charged and then a hearing is held. If the hearing finds her guilty it is then and only then that the letter of reprimand or any other disciplinary action can be issued. Not before.
The programme was not about the shouting. The programme was intended to give my listeners an understanding of the role and functions of the Speaker of the House, The President of the Senate and the Clerks of the upper and lower houses of Parliament. Listen again.
One of the roles of the Speaker of the House MUST be to know the disciplinary procedures s/he intends to use. In addition copying the letter to 60 ppl IS making it public. The steps laid out in the comment above are correct. The letter should not placed on file because the Speaker breached the procedures.
The Clerk works with the Parliament and if she does anything which affects the parliamentary work, the parliamentarians must know. It cannot be a secret between the Speaker and the Clerk of the House. Someone leaked the information to the public.
One of the challenges of a public job like that is that nothing is a secret. The Speaker cannot be blamed for that.
It is hard for people to discuss this matter without emotions but it is what it is. I got involved in this national discourse because people have been getting false information.
Persons clearly do not understand the role, function and power of the Speaker. The Speaker is in charge of Parliament and is independent of other government departments. The Speaker as the head of the parliament can reprimand anyone including the MPs and staff of the parliament.
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