Parliamentarians enjoy constitutional protection against civil and criminal proceedings for anything they might say in the course of debate in the House of Representatives or the Senate. This means that no matter how vile and slanderous their words might be, and even if deliberately fabricated, they cannot be sued in the civil courts for defamation, and they cannot be charged for a criminal offence.
There is a specific provision in the Constitution that says as much. It is a feature of all Commonwealth Constitutions inherited from the Westminster prototype. It is designed to ensure that our representatives can speak freely on our behalves in Parliament. The injury which might incidentally be caused to other members of the legislative bodies or to innocent third parties is thought not to be too high a price to pay to guarantee fearless representation.
If what our parliamentarians say within the confines of the legislative chamber stayed within the confines of the legislative chamber, we would have no reason to be overly concerned with the way they exercised the freedom.
But debates in Parliament are carried live on a cable channel devoted exclusively to parliamentary affairs. They are recorded and replayed. Newspapers and the electronic media are permitted in law to relay what parliamentarians say in their debates, as long as the report is an accurate representation of what was said. The result is that parliamentarians are assured that their most depraved and wicked accusations will be given the widest publicity, without personal repercussion.
The advent of social media fora has served only to amplify exponentially the injury which can be caused. A parliamentarian nursing some grouse against a fellow parliamentarian or a member of the public is as a consequence enabled to plot revenge and assassinate the character of anyone on whom she might choose to train her fire.
In their investigative reporting, journalists are held to much higher standards. They are required above all to be responsible, which at a minimum means that they must ensure that their publications are properly sourced and that they give the target of their reports an opportunity to respond, with the concomitant obligation to publish the response they receive. This is common fairness at work.
Mrs Vernella Alleyne-Toppin was not legally required to be responsible in her contribution to the debate on the Government's no confidence motion against the leader of the Opposition.If she had thought about it, she would not have been able to seek verification of the allegation that Dr Rowley's mother had been raped. Dr Rowley's parents passed away some time ago. That by itself should have given Mrs Alleyne-Toppin cause to pause and consider the morality of what she was about to do.
The other victim of the alleged rape, on the other hand, is alive and, as a report in a daily newspaper has revealed, available to shed light on the salacious allegations which Mrs Alleyne-Toppin was all too ready to believe and to disseminate. Had she taken the time to verify her information, she would have been bound to report to the House that the questions she was calling upon Dr Rowley to answer had already been answered by the supposed victim of the rape.
But that is just the point. Mrs Alleyne-Toppin's purpose was not to use her freedom of speech to bring the truth to light. Her aim was to denigrate the leader of the Opposition, no matter what injury might be caused to innocent third parties. She gave new meaning to the free speech war cry: "Publish and be damned."
Freedom of speech in parliament is important. But because of its potential to cause irreparable harm, the unspoken and unwritten principle is that it is a freedom which will be exercised responsibly and with restraint. One of the safeguards against abuse is the power of the Speaker to intervene to protect members of the public who do not have audience in the House.
Proceedings for contempt of Parliament can be taken after the fact to serve as a deterrent against future infractions. The problem with these mechanisms is that when deployed against opposition members, the Government is susceptible to the charge of using their majority to silence uncomfortable dissent. And, of course, it is unlikely that these safeguards will be used against their own.
Much therefore depends upon the honesty and integrity of individual members to police themselves and each other, lest the sanctity of Parliament as an institution be brought into disrepute. That virtue of self-restraint was in short supply last Wednesday. A horde of parliamentarians, presided over by a malleable Speaker, all of whom have mothers, sisters and daughters, sat and listened to Mrs Alleyne-Toppin declare that Dr Rowley's mother had been raped and imply in no uncertain terms that a woman whose identity could be easily ascertained had been raped by Dr Rowley.
On the premise that they were taken by surprise, shocked silence would have been understandable. Instead, what was actually shocking was the desk thumping which greeted Mrs Alleyne-Toppin's startling revelations.
It was as though she was being congratulated for disclosing to the nation that a dead woman had given birth to a child conceived in an act of rape, and that the mother of a 45-year-old man, who now has a family of his own, had also been raped. Did it not occur to anyone at anytime the harm that could be done to people not seeking political office?
The framers of our Constitution attempted to write down as much as they could to shape the future practice of democracy in this country. They couldn't write everything down. A lot has been left to the development of a culture of respect for one another and for democratic traditions. We have singularly failed in this project.
Parliament has become less an institution in which our better angels are put on display and more a forum for mudslinging and backbiting. For that, all parliamentarians, government and opposition, are responsible. Mrs Alleyne-Toppin's putrid descent into the abyss is just the most egregious manifestation of a broken system.