Speaker silences PNM MP Amery Browne, who leads a 'partial' opposition walkout

Six opposition Members of Parliament walked out of the House of Representatives Friday after Speaker Wade Mark used an obscure standing order to silence Diego Martin Central MP Dr Amery Browne.

Browne was speaking during the debate on the Anti-Gang Bill and raised several issues, some of them unrelated to the business at hand.

Eventually, House Leader Dr Roodal Moonilal asked the Speaker to shut down the MP. 

Browne was at the time knocking the government for cancelling the offshore patrol vessels, appointing a Canadian police commissioner and making former House Speaker Nizam Mohammed the head of the Police Service Commission.

Browne called Mohammed a politician and was about to mention Mohammed's run in with two traffic police officers when Mark asked him to ensure that his remarks were relevant to the motion.

He ignored the Speaker and even refused to take his seat when the Prime Minister rose on a point of order to correct the misinformation coming from the former cabinet minister. 

"Diego Martin Central could you take your seat," Mark advised. But Browne protested. "She cannot tell me to sit down," he said.

With both of them on their feet the Speaker intervened. "You are being very disrespectful and, in fact, you are irrelevant and I want to warn you...If you continue along that irrelevant path, I will ask you to discontinue your contribution," Mark warned. 

Earlier Brown had shouted down rookie MP Stacy Roopnarine who tried to correct the MP who was suggesting that there was something irregular in the use of state funds, telling her to shut up and sit down. Mark had to point out that the Speaker was the only person with such authority.

When Browne appeared to defy the Speaker and challenge the Prime Minister, Leader of Government Business Roodal Moonilal stood up and called for Standing Order 43 (2), which had never been used in the House.

It states in part: "...once called the attention of the House or Committee to the conduct of a member who persists in irrelevance or tedious repetition of his own arguments or of the arguments used by other members in debate, move that the Member be no longer heard..."

Mark put the matter before the House which was passed with the strong government majority.

At that point, Diego Martin North East MP Colm Imbert announced the walkout, although he remained seated in the Opposition Leader's chair. Keith Rowley was absent, as he was recuperating from surgery.

Browne led the partial walkout. He was followed by Alicia Hospedales, Patricia McIntosh, Paula Gopee-Scoon, Fitzgerald Jeffrey and Nileung Hypolite. However, Chief Whip Marlene McDonald, and MPs Donna Cox, Joanne Thomas and Imbert remained in their seats. The MP for San Fernando East, Patrick Manning was not in the House.

Prime Minister provoked laughter when she noted that it was "a partial walk out." Gopee-Scoon returned about an hour later, but the others stayed away until the House adjourned after agreeing to send the bill to a Joint Select Committee.