Trotman's rejected motion was out of order - Speaker
Stabroek News
July 10, 2004
A parliamentary motion that was submitted in March to debate the Disciplined Forces Commission's (DFC) Interim Report was disallowed because it was out of order, Speaker Ralph Ramkarran has said.
On March 19, the motion was submitted by PNCR MP Raphael Trotman, who was seeking to have the Clerk of the National Assembly place the report on the Order Paper for the approval of the National Assembly.
At that time, there was still no debate on the report, which had been presented in December.
"The Motion was out of order because the placing of a Motion on an Order Paper is an administrative function of the Parliament Office," Ramkarran said on Thursday when the DFC's interim and final reports were unanimously approved by the Assembly with the PNCR in attendance.
Ramkarran was at the time clarifying a news item in that day's edition of the Stabroek News in which Opposition leader, Robert Corbin was reported as saying that for several months the party was calling for the report to be considered for adoption and implementation but Trotman's motion was disallowed as the Speaker had said it was ill-conceived.
Corbin had in fact said that the Speaker thought the motion to be misconceived.
Ramkarran explained that after a motion is submitted, it has to receive his approval and then it is published in a Notice Paper before it is placed on the Order Paper two weeks later.
"For the National Assembly to direct the Clerk to place the interim report on the Order Paper is contrary to the Standing Orders, it is not a motion and is placing the cart before the horse."
He said after studying the motion he directed the Clerk to reply to Trotman and offered a redrafted clause and a copy of a draft motion that could have been used. But the Clerk received no response from Trotman to the March 30 letter.
Trotman told the assembly on Thursday that he chose not to exercise the option offered to him.
"Had all of this been revealed... or reported, no one could have been left with the impression that I or the Parliament Office unjustifiably rejected the letter from Honourable Member Mr. Trotman," he said, adding that the comment by Corbin reported in the Stabroek News conveys an incorrect and incomplete impression of what transpired.