DR HAMID GHANY

Hamid.ghany@sta.uwi.edu

Dr Ru­pert Grif­fith en­tered par­lia­men­tary pol­i­tics in De­cem­ber 1991 when he was elect­ed as the MP for Ari­ma. When the Par­lia­ment opened in Jan­u­ary 1992 he was elect­ed deputy speak­er. He would even­tu­al­ly break po­lit­i­cal bar­ri­ers that some peo­ple may not re­mem­ber.

In 1995, the then leader of the Op­po­si­tion, Bas­deo Pan­day, wrote to him as deputy speak­er (the Speak­er Ms Oc­c­ah Sea­paul had been sus­pend­ed) by let­ter dat­ed Sep­tem­ber 11, 1995, to have the MP for Ch­agua­nas, Ms Hulsie Bhag­gan, re­moved. The ba­sis for this re­quest was that she had left the UNC and formed her own po­lit­i­cal par­ty, the Move­ment for Uni­ty and Progress (MUP) in 1995.

The mat­ter was con­sid­ered by Deputy Speak­er Grif­fith who ruled on Sep­tem­ber 13, 1995, as fol­lows:

“I have, there­fore, thought it pru­dent to seek le­gal guid­ance on this mat­ter and on the ad­vice now avail­able to me, it would seem that for the pro­ce­dures es­tab­lished by sec­tion 49A to be prop­er­ly in­voked, the nec­es­sary Stand­ing Or­ders should be made, pur­suant to sec­tion 49A (5). I have so ad­vised the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion by let­ter dat­ed to­day's date. In the cir­cum­stances, I must de­cline to make the de­c­la­ra­tion re­quest­ed of me as Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer un­til such time as pro­vi­sions by way of Stand­ing Or­ders are made for the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and recog­ni­tion of the leader in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of every par­ty.” (Hansard, House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Ses­sion 1994-1995, 51st Sit­ting, p 742).

This pe­ri­od of ser­vice by Grif­fith as act­ing speak­er came about be­cause of the sus­pen­sion of Oc­c­ah Sea­paul as speak­er and it was nev­er al­tered un­til then prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning ad­vised the dis­so­lu­tion of Par­lia­ment in Oc­to­ber 1995 for a gen­er­al elec­tion in No­vem­ber 1995. Grif­fith was re-elect­ed as the MP for Ari­ma at that elec­tion which the PNM lost in a hung Par­lia­ment.

In 1997, Grif­fith was the first of two PNM MPs (the sec­ond was Vin­cent Lasse) who had been elect­ed in 1995 who crossed the floor from the op­po­si­tion and were soon ap­point­ed ju­nior Min­is­ters in the Bas­deo Pan­day Gov­ern­ment.

The PNM po­lit­i­cal leader at that time, Patrick Man­ning, who was al­so leader of the Op­po­si­tion, sought to have the seats of both Grif­fith and Lasse de­clared va­cant on the ground that both MPs had crossed the floor from the PNM to the UNC and in the process had au­to­mat­i­cal­ly earned an ex­pul­sion from the PNM by virtue of the con­sti­tu­tion of the par­ty.

The Speak­er at that time, Hec­tor Mc Clean, re­fused Mr Man­ning his re­quest for the two seats to be de­clared va­cant by re­ly­ing, in­ter alia, on the rul­ing giv­en by Grif­fith him­self in the pre­vi­ous Par­lia­ment on Sep­tem­ber 13, 1995 (see Hansard, House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Ses­sion 1995-1996, Vol 5, pp 818-826 for the de­tails of Mc Clean’s rul­ing).

Grif­fith was able to serve the rest of his term as an MP undis­turbed un­til the gen­er­al elec­tion of De­cem­ber 2000. He lost his bid for re-elec­tion as the MP for Ari­ma, how­ev­er, in Jan­u­ary 2001, he was pro­posed for and was elect­ed as the Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. He suc­ceed­ed Hec­tor Mc Clean as speak­er. Both he and Mc Clean were de­feat­ed can­di­dates and his elec­tion as speak­er con­tin­ued the tra­di­tion of de­feat­ed can­di­dates as Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives that had been start­ed in 1995.

His fi­nal sit­ting as speak­er was marred by con­tro­ver­sy on Fri­day Oc­to­ber 5, 2001, when two bills were de­feat­ed that day and a re­quest for a di­vi­sion over the mo­tion by Leader of the House Gan­ga Singh to ad­journ the House to a date to be fixed was re­fused by Grif­fith de­spite calls for a di­vi­sion from MPs.

An at­tempt was made to have him sus­pend­ed as speak­er be­cause of his re­fusal of that di­vi­sion on the mo­tion for the ad­journ­ment of the House.

Par­lia­ment was dis­solved a few days lat­er there­by nul­li­fy­ing the sus­pen­sion at­tempt and gen­er­al elec­tions were held in De­cem­ber 2001. He re­mained in of­fice un­til April 5, 2002, when the new Par­lia­ment as­sem­bled which ter­mi­nat­ed his tenure as speak­er.

He was elect­ed to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on May 24, 2010, as the MP for To­co/San­gre Grande and was made Min­is­ter of Tourism. He was the on­ly for­mer speak­er to ever be ap­point­ed a min­is­ter in a fu­ture Par­lia­ment. May he rest in peace.