Objections to Juliet Holness as House Speaker

 

Leader of Opposition Business in the House of Representatives, Phillip Paulwell, says the opposition sent a clear message in its objection against Juliet Holness as House Speaker. 

 

Mrs. Holness, who is Member of Parliament for East Rural St. Andrew, was reelected Speaker of the House of Representatives on Thursday. But her nomination was not seconded by the parliamentary opposition. 

 

Mr. Paulwell says the opposition has concerns about Mrs. Holness being the speaker, given issues during her last term in the post. 

 

"We do not believe that it is appropriate having seen Mrs. Holness perform as Speaker, especially in relation to certain issues affecting the Auditor General's Department, Intergrity Commission, and the whole business of impartiality of the Speaker. And I believe that we have to do some reforms now about the way the Speaker conducts him or herself as the impartial arbiter in Parliament. And having signalled to the government that

we were not in support of it, and that was done from last year's budget presentation when the Prime Minister walked up to the House, we think that there would have been an effort towards compromise this time around and to select a different Speaker," said Mr. Paulwell, who was a guest Thursday on Radio Jamaica's Beyond the Headlines. 

 

But Floyd Green, Leader of Government Business in the House of Representatives, has defended the re-election of Mrs. Holness as House Speaker.

 

Minister Green said Mrs. Holness has distinguished herself as a fair and unbiased individual.

 

"I think she has done a very good job. I think she's been even handed in her approach. She's been fair. If you look at how she administers the affairs of the House, especially in relation to things like presentations and time and people speaking, what goes for the government, goes for the opposition. Outside of that, I think she has tried to implement a rules based approach. Now clearly, the House of Parliament is a place of rules, but over the years, a number of different convention have snuck in and sometimes it leads to discretion. I think she's tried to take it back to the rules, to the Standing Orders, and where there's a disagreement, she has rightly sought advice and acted upon that advice. I think outside of that, the House itself has progressed under her leadership," he argued. 

 

Still, the Advocates Network said the return of Mrs. Holness as House Speaker is distressing. 

 

Patricia Donald Phillips, a member of the Advocates Network, argued that the decision is ill-advised as it disregards responsible governance, citizen and civil society concerns, the psychology of governance, and creates barriers to transparency and accountability.

 

"Just seeing the furore that this appointment had made when it was just done, how it is now, as it is, totally dismissed. There's a sense of just a total disregard for and a lack of respect for those who have severe concerns about the concentration of power and the proximity to power that now occurs when spouses control the two highest offices in governance in our country," she contended. 

 

Mrs. Donald Phillips, who was also a guest on Beyond the Headlines, stressed that the pushback against this appointment should not be seen as an attack on the Speaker's personal integrity, but rather as a concern about how it could potentially undermine good governance and the public interest. 

 

"The resistance to this appointment is not about the individual's integrity or ethics. It's about the perception of such a proximity of relationship and what that does to the whole matter of being objective or not objective. When we look in the past at how certain matters were handled, when we look at the fact of certain challenges being raised now, which will continue to be raised in terms of issues around the prime minister, we see the challenge that that can bring to a spouse in a position where even their own relationship can be at risk if something is brought forward and expedited and if it is delayed, then it puts the nation's concerns at risk," she reasoned.