‘Travesty’ in the House
Speaker accused of overstepping her authority in sending ‘insult’ reprimand to clerk of Parliament
FORMER SOLICITOR General Michael Hylton, King’s Counsel (KC), says the public service, which has a carefully constructed disciplinary procedure in relation to public servants, does not contemplate that politicians such as the Speaker of the House of Representatives should have powers to sanction or punish Clerk to the Houses of Parliament Valrie Curtis.
“The system does not envisage any punishment being meted out by the Speaker to public servants,” he told The Gleaner.
At the same time, Opposition Leader Mark Golding says a recent reprimand of the clerk by House Speaker Juliet Holness was a travesty considering that Curtis had given almost three decades of service to Parliament and the people of Jamaica.
“In the twilight of her career, to have had to suffer the ignominy of having this letter being disseminated to the entire Parliament, and many others as well, was an absolute travesty. It purported to reprimand and discipline her which the Speaker has no jurisdiction to do,” he told The Gleaner on the sidelines of Gordon House yesterday.
A letter dispatched to 62 lawmakers by the Speaker on Monday accused the clerk of “gross dereliction of duty” and bringing the Parliament into disrepute. Holness indicated that the clerk failed to comply with a ruling that she made in November last year regarding the tabling of reports from the auditor general.
Golding said the Speaker is a politically elected representative and the clerk is a constitutional officer and a public officer under the supreme law.
“Any matters to do with the clerk and her terms of service are governed by the administrative laws of Jamaica and the Constitution and there is no power lying in the Speaker to reprimand her or discipline her in any way.”
Golding said, to add insult to
injury, the letter was publicised before the clerk had sight of it.
“It should have been formally withdrawn. The Speaker should have been big enough to do that, recognising that what she had done was absolutely deplorable yesterday (Monday).”
However, Hylton said the first port of call for the clerk to the Houses should be the Jamaica Civil Service Association as she must be concerned about the Speaker’s public rebuke.
“I would say it is at least very unfortunate that this act was done and done in such a public and almost unprecedented way,” he noted.
The former solicitor general says it was not clear in terms of the basis on which the Speaker had publicly reprimanded the clerk, adding that Holness should provide more details.
“It is important to recognise that we are talking about a public servant, the clerk to the Houses, not a politician, not carrying out any kind of political role, just doing her job, and it would need to be a very clear case, in my view, to justify the kind of public embarrassment that she is being subjected to.”
At yesterday’s sitting of Parliament, the Speaker said she was having dialogue with the clerk to the Houses. “On the matter of the clerk I advise you, both from myself and the clerk, that we are in dialogue and wish to say nothing else at this point.”
Leader of Opposition business in the House Phillip Paulwell told the Speaker that the letter she sent to the 62 lawmakers and the human resources manager concerning the alleged failure by the clerk to the Houses to comply with her ruling caused members on the opposition side “tremendous distress”.
He indicated that the anguish was amplified by the fact that Curtis would be retiring from the public service in a matter of days.
Paulwell asked the Speaker to comment on what motivated her action to upbraid and discipline the clerk in the way she did.
However, Leader of Government business Edmund Bartlett intervened, saying that it was not appropriate to discuss the matter on the floor of Parliament.
“There is a sensitivity too that we should not ignore. I would urge that we respect that and an appropriate statement will be made at the end of that discussion,” he said.
SUGGESTION REJECTED
But the Opposition rejected his suggestion, noting that the Speaker embarrassed the clerk in public.
Paulwell said he had expected the Speaker to formally withdraw her letter on Tuesday.
O’Neil Grant, immediate past president of the JCSA, said the Speaker’s statement, which indicated that the letter of reprimand would be placed on the file of the clerk was a warning.
He said that gross dereliction of duty that the clerk has been accused of can result in a public servant being separated from her job.
Grant said if the clerk fell down on the job, it should trigger an investigation and the outcome would determine the process that would lead to remedial action.
He said Section 47 of the Constitution speaks to a level of security of tenure for the clerk and deputy clerk.
“Based on my observation so far, I don’t think that we have exhausted the process before we come to the point of placing a letter on the file of the clerk.”
Discussing the way forward, Grant suggested that the Speaker should acknowledge that she fell down in relation to due process.
“The instruction to place the letter on the file, that can be stood down given what has happened and bring it back to the local level where some kind of conciliatory conversation can be held to look at the issues,” Grant told The Gleaner before the parliamentary sitting on Tuesday.