Proposed legislation should not be passed – Campbell

Although a local Queen’s Counsel disapproves of members of the Opposition boycotting parliamentary sittings, he believes that the proposed legislation to fine them for their absence is “terrible”, and should not be passed.

Speaking on his programme ‘The Law and You’ on SVGTV last Monday, former attorney general Par­nell Campbell said that he is not in favour of the Bill, be­cause it could make the current political climate even worse {{more}}than it already is.

“I condemn the action of the Opposition members for missing the Budget debate…. That is their decision, and they are not bound to listen to me, but I gave my advice for what it was worth. I am similarly giving my advice to the Government about this Bill, and I am strongly urging the Government not to proceed with this Bill,” asserted Campbell.

The Parliament Act 2016, which has already been given its first reading in Parliament and has been sent to a select committee of the House, proposes to make a deduction of 50 per cent of the parliamentary member’s monthly salary if he/she is absent for more than “one consecutive sittings” of the House without the permission of the Speaker.

According to the proposed Bill, it aims to “make provisions to regulate the attendance of members of the House of Assembly at sittings of the House, to provide for adjustments to the emoluments payable by law to members of the House and for related purposes.”

Campbell added: “This Bill was drafted and brought to the House by the Government in anger. The Government was clearly quite upset with the Opposition… for drawing salaries and not doing the work… I want to remind the Government that laws should never be passed in anger. Lawmaking should be done after due and weighty consideration, and the consequences of lawmaking should be carefully considered before lawmaking is engaged upon.”

The Queen’s Counsel lawyer further pointed out that there is a “serious and constitutional object” to this legislation, in that it gives the Speaker of the House powers that are normally reserved for a court of law.

“To me, it can be argued that in so doing, the Bill offends the constitutional principle of the separation of powers, where the courts should be the only institutions armed with the power to visit penal consequences of a financial nature…

“The Bill does not have an appellate procedure. There is nothing in the Bill that gives a member of parliament who feels he has been wrongfully fined the right to appeal… Normally, if this Bill is passed, the High Court would have great difficulty finding the jurisdiction to intervene in cases where a member is aggrieved by having been fined half his emoluments.”

Additionally, Campbell said that the Bill is difficult to interpret, in that it is not clear what is meant by “one consecutive sittings of the House”.

“I used to think that the word ‘consecutive’ should be used in the context of the word ‘two’.”

Campbell acknowledged that the right to protest is a “deeply enshrined right in democratic practice,” but hastened to add that it should be done peacefully and lawfully.

“Conceptually, the idea of fining a person who protests, as a parliamentarian, by staying away from Parliament is fraught with danger. It’s not proportionate… to fine a member of parliament half his monthly salary for boycotting, let us say, two meetings.”

Another flaw in the proposed Bill that he pointed out was the lack of definition of what an absence from the House is – instead, it should specify how long a parliamentary member has to be present in the House to be considered full attendance.

“The House would normally meet, outside the Budget, at 10 o’clock on mornings. So, a member who comes, sits in Parliament for half an hour and then goes home, has he attended the meeting or not?”

He added: “If you are going to have penal legislation, then the conduct which triggers the penalty has to be clearly established in the law which creates the penalty.”

In relation to Clause 4 (2), which states: “Every member, who is prevented from attending a sitting of the House, shall notify the Clerk of the House of Assembly as early as possible of his or her inability to attend”, Campbell pointed out that is very possible for a member of the Opposition to obtain a doctor’s certificate (under false pretences) that excludes him or her for a period of time that would include a sitting of the House.

“Nothing may be wrong with him, but the Opposi­tion would just be indulging in… a sick-out. What is the Clerk going to do? What is the Speaker going to do?”

He countered that there are several alternative ways in which members can be disciplined for intentionally missing sittings of the House.

“Right now the rules of the House render a member’s seat liable to be vacated if the member is absent for six sittings. Three unexplained absences triggers a warning, and then another three absences and you will lose the seat,” he observed.

He further said that he considers it reasonable to reduce this number of unauthorized absences from six to a lesser number.

In addition to this, the lawyer pointed out that parliamentarians who purposely stay away from par­lia­mentary sittings face potentially negative ramifications with those who voted for them in the previous elections when the next general elections come around.

“Their employers – the voters – would be reminded that those are the people sent there already and didn’t go, so why are they asking to be sent back?”

The Parliament Act 2016 is today, March 4, published in SEARCHLIGHT on page 21 for public scrutiny and consultation. In a previous episode of Campbell’s television programme, he had advised the Government to make the proposed Bill available for public scrutiny prior to it being passed.

“Let the public have a chance to see what it contains and to comment on it, because it isn’t every problem which can be solved by legislation.” (JSV)