Published 25 January 2018
Buckie Got It, St. Kitts and Nevis News Source
By: Media Source
Liburd: Speaker Michael Perkins in collusion with PM Harris
Basseterre, St. Kitts, January 25, 2018 – Parliamentary Representative for St. Christopher 2 (Central Basseterre), Hon. Marcella Liburd is of the firm view that Speaker of the National Assembly Michael Perkins is in collusion with the Team Unity Government of Prime Minister Dr. Timothy Harris.
“I say it repeatedly without fear that he is in collusion with the government and their political agenda, he is in collusion with them,” Liburd told WINNFM.
She said Speaker Perkins plunged the lawmaking body into disrepute by allowing the Attorney General Vincent Byron to read the full text of a civil suit his Chambers filed in the High Court involving the Leader of the Opposition, Rt. Hon. Dr. Denzil L. Douglas knowing that the matter was sub judice.
Dr. Douglas was suspended from the National Assembly during his effort to respond to the Attorney General’s statement.
Liburd, a lawyer said the Speaker’s action was not complying with Section 5.3 of the Standing Orders of the National Assemble.
“It says that if a matter is before the court which is sub judice, it shouldn’t be spoken to in the parliament. There is the Attorney General reading out a matter he says that is before the court, all the sections, and making all sorts of allegations and the Speaker allows him to do that and then the Speaker refers to the very section I’m talking about and says that the section says whether or not you can speak on it, is whether or not in the Speaker’s opinion. What he’s doing is prejudicial to the interest of any of the parties to the matter,” said Liburd, a former deputy speaker and Speaker.
“I want to see which reasonable person in this world would tell me that what the Attorney General did this morning is not prejudicial to Dr. Douglas, who is one of the parties in that matter. Only the Speaker would think that it is not prejudicial,” said Liburd.
There has been widespread condemnation of the actions of Speaker Perkins over the past two years.
“The Speaker Is incompetent and he Is intentional in what he says and does to the side Opposite. He is so bold-faced and unashamed with his rulings and actions because of the support he receives,” said Sandy Point-born Gretna Lewis.
Lewis, like thousands of Kittitians and Nevisians, is of the view that “it was a sort of “set up” and premeditated on the Speaker’s part and the government side.”
Former United Nations economist, Mrs. Willa Liburd describes the expulsion of Dr. Douglas by Speaker Perkins as “an act of gross incompetence, if not worse.”
“I am however happy that up to now, St. Kitts & Nevis continues to be a democratic country where freedom of speech and expression is constitutionally protected and therefore as a citizen of this country I am free to express my views here. This is what I saw and heard on live television today,” said Liburd.
“When I look at what goes on in parliaments around the world, including in Great Britain from whom we have adopted our parliamentary democratic system, where the Speaker has to tell members time and time again, “Order!”; when one observes some of the East Asian countries where they fist fight in parliament; when the whole world sees and hears the President of the United States, the leader of the presumed greatest democracy in the world, continuously make derogatory remarks about people, various ethnic and religious groups and countries; but in St. Kitts and Nevis, a democratically elected parliamentarian and Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition is suspended for a full session of the House because he did not fall over his feet to get out of the Assembly room on the request of the Speaker of the House, it does boggle the mind,” Liburd said.
“Any intelligent person must conclude that this was an incompetent act on the part of the Speaker of the House and some may even think it was planned and contrived. This cannot in my mind be an act of good governance, but in fact the contrary.”
On Wednesday the Oppostion Leader called on the non-governmental agencies in the twin-island Federation to rein in the Team Unity Government of Prime Minister Harris in its deliberate attempt to stifle the voice of the opposition in the lawmaking body.
