The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

May it please your Majesty, I have neither eye to see nor tongue to speak in this place, but as the House is pleased to direct me.

This famous declaration by Speaker William Lenthall in 1642 was the beginning of the separation of the Speakership from the king of England and has served as the standard required of a presiding officer in the Westminster system.

There has been much commentary on the conduct of the present and the former Speaker of the House of Assembly. Mostly the problems related to the job of presiding over the House in a fair manner, making rulings and keeping order in the chamber. These issues, in part, are relatable to how we have valued the Parliament, its traditions and its presiding officers. I attribute the performances of the Speakers to several reasons which are correctable.

Firstly, I have always maintained that persons elected to the House of Assembly should not be (chosen) as Speaker during their first term as a Member of Parliament. Selection to the office of Speaker ought to be a process. There are too many nuances for a rookie member of Parliament to navigate when presiding over an adversarial chamber such as the House of Assembly. The normal path in Westminster parliaments is to first be elected as a Deputy Speaker, get familiarised with those nuances and gain invaluable experience.

Secondly, there ought to be put in place adequate training for the Speaker. This could take the form of a written booklet that explains all of the rules and conventions of the Westminster system. This should detail the fundamentals of the principles of the Separation of Powers, Collective and Individual responsibility and the working knowledge of the Constitution and how to apply the House Rules of Procedure.

The training should also include sessions with the Clerk of the House who should explain the nuances to the presiding officer pointing out what you can and cannot do.

Thirdly, the local branch of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) should plan its own local seminars where the Speaker could benefit from the wisdom and experience of former parliamentarians and others who may have some understanding of the Westminster system and its conventions.

Fourthly, Speakers should be exposed to conventions, seminars and workshops organised by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) and other parliaments in the region and in the wider commonwealth. These seminars and workshops are particularly useful for newly elected presiding officers as I have found that colleagues in the region are happy to share their knowledge and experiences.

Now in the British House of Commons the convention has evolved where the Speakership has been mostly separated from the political party. The practice now is that once you are elected Speaker you are expected to resign from your political party. This gives the office of Speaker a certain level of independence and autonomy. The freedom, impartiality and objectivity which flow naturally from this independence are invaluable to a presiding officer.

Moreover, the convention also includes the electoral benefit that if the Speaker, having demonstrated fairness and impartiality in presiding over the House, is generally permitted to run unopposed in the next general election. This convention in Britain was entrenched in the mid-eighteenth century.

This convention, however, is a big ask for the Bahamian parliamentary context. My recommendation to address the independence of the Speaker is for the parliament to enact the necessary legislation to unshackle the Office of Speaker from the overwhelming influence of his political party, and arm the speakership with the necessary freedom so that the office holder could channel his first loyalty to the parliament rather than to the party.

Sir Alvin Braynen was the first Speaker in the modern political democracy. He has been the only one who could be considered as truly independent. Sir Alvin had been a member of the House from 1935 when he was first elected as a Member for Cat Island. His other thirty years in the House were spent representing his beloved Harbour Island.

Sir Alvin had many years of experience in the House of Assembly and even served a term as Deputy Speaker prior to his election as Speaker in 1967. He won election in 1967 as an independent Member for Harbour Island and when he was elected Speaker, he did not have the baggage of a political party he had to slavishly adhere to.

Sir Alvin had the freedom to be fair, independent and fearless. His independence was demonstrated in a high-profile confrontation he had with the Premier, Lynden Pindling, in 1969 after the death of the House Clerk, Jack Smith in June of that year.

Sir Lynden proposed to appoint a senior officer from the Cabinet Office to serve as Clerk of the House. Sir Alvin objected strongly to the proposal and told Sir Lynden in no uncertain terms that he would never agree to the proposal so long as he served as Speaker.

He argued that since Sir Lynden was head of the executive branch of government, he had no right to appoint anyone to serve in the House of Assembly. Sir Alvin wrote the following to Sir Lynden:

Channeling Speaker Lenthall 380 years earlier, Sir Alvin wrote the following to the Premier. “The House needs the clerical assistance for which I am asking, and because the House of Assembly is an “independent” chamber of the legislature, its Speaker is not in power to accept any help from the Cabinet Office. The “independence” of our chamber, I cannot surrender to the Cabinet Office, even if I wished to do so, without instruction from the House.”

He continued: “I absolutely refuse to have any officer of the House under the Cabinet Office’s influence or acting under the instructions of the Cabinet.”

It is a bit refreshing to see what true independence could mean for the Parliament of the Bahamas and its Speaker. I would urge the government to train-up and free-up the Speakership so that this most important democratic institution could operate as it was meant to work.

MAURICE TYNES

Nassau,

August 15, 2022.