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Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Speaker and opposition clash in Parliament 

Englerston Mp Glenys Hanna Martin. FILE

House Speaker Halson Moultrie sought to remove Englerston MP Glenys Hanna-Martin from the House of Assembly chamber on Tuesday afternoon following a dramatic and tense show-down in Parliament.

A shouting match erupted between Hanna-Martin and members of the governing party shortly after Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis tabled the proclamation of emergency that Governor General C.A. Smith issued yesterday.

When Leader of Government Business in the House of Assembly Renward Wells moved to suspend proceedings before Opposition Leader Philip Brave Davis got a chance to address the House, Hanna-Martin accused the government of misconduct.

The move to suspend proceedings came only 20 minutes after it began.

As Hanna-Martin shouted her objections from her seat, Moultrie ordered her to withdraw for a “breach of the rules and creating a disturbance”.

Hanna-Martin stood her ground as several MPs voiced their support for her.

Seconds later, the House of Assembly was suspended until Monday.

Before the uproar, Prime Minister Minnis addressed the controversy surrounding the emergency orders.

“Many individuals would have felt the lockdown and emergency orders were not have been in place yesterday,” he said.

“I want to reassure then that there was no breakdown in the continuity of the orders.”

A new  proclamation was issued yesterday after the government failed to have passed in Parliament a resolution to extend the initial proclamation that expired at midnight last night.

The whole matter created confusion over whether the emergency order restricting civil liberties would still stand after midnight.

Attorney General Carl Bethel took “full ministerial responsibility” for what he called an “oversight”.

The post Speaker and opposition clash in Parliament  appeared first on The Nassau Guardian.



source https://thenassauguardian.com/2020/06/30/speaker-and-opposition-clash-in-parliament/

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