And while UDP Leader Shyne Barrow has been critical of what he sees as the ineffectiveness of current policing strategies, he wasn't in the house to say it.
The Opposition's bench in the house of representatives today was empty. Now, that may not be saying much, since it's never ever full with the 5 members, but, today the UDP took the decision to boycott the meeting on the grounds that the standing orders were not followed and the 7 day notice was not given before the house sitting.
The Leader of the Opposition called in a house sitting protest, detailed in a letter addressed to the speaker of the house, and signed by all the party representatives. He told us more about their decision to boycott the meeting.
Shyne Barrow, Leader of the Opposition
"So that was a parliamentary cater to the honorable speaker of the house, protesting the deviation from established protocols during her tenure, which is to give a 7 days notice before a house sitting, and we find this deviation to be a threat to our democracy and an abrogation of the rights and privileges of the opposition. Now one may say why does it matter 7 days. It matters because we are a country of rules and laws we have standing orders that guide the affairs that we conduct in this honorable house and those standing orders have a very crucial tool of oversight which is a standing order 93 which allows for questions to ministers. But the way the standing orders work is that those questions to ministers cannot be put on the order paper if the minister was not given 5 cleared days notice of said questions. So when you call a house meeting with three cleared days that is a deviation from established protocol on the protocol was established in order to allow for honorable members and the opposition side, which have questions to minister to be able to present their questions to ministers in accordance with the standing orders and that was not done this is the first time that this has been done. As accepted by the honorable speaker but it cannot be another time. So we know this government and how contemptuous they are and how arrogant they are and how hypocritical they are and so we felt that it was important to make a stand and not allow this to just blow over like breeze."
