The Tribune

By NICOLE BURROWS

“Parliamentary privilege grants certain legal immunities for Members of both Houses to allow them to perform their duties without interference from outside of the House. Parliamentary privilege includes freedom of speech and the right of both Houses to regulate their own affairs.”

www.parliament.uk

Another definition of Parliamentary privilege is “a legal immunity enjoyed by members of certain legislatures, in which legislators are granted protection against civil or criminal liability for actions done or statements made in the course of their legislative duties”.

My question is, can it be sufficiently argued that Minister Jerome Fitzgerald was performing his duties when he mentioned the infamous Save The Bays emails? Were Fitzgerald’s statements really made in the course of performing his legislative duties?

He wasn’t contributing to the budget debate was he? Was he discussing legislation at the time he launched into the details of emails from his political garbage can? All I can recall is that he was in the throes of defending his party’s reputation and mud slinging the Free National Movement (FNM) House members across the floor. It can’t simply be that being physically present in the Parliament or the House of Assembly provides Parliamentary privilege, can it?

Considering that the Bahamas has adopted the legal speak of its British forebears, I can only imagine that they also brought over the definition of Parliamentary privilege. Perhaps they added their own caveats?

The Data Protection Commissioner, Sharmie Farrington-Austin, is “powerless” to do anything about the email disclosure because of Parliamentary privilege, according to the Data Protection Act, Section 5, but in her television interview she says that if Members of Parliament (MPs) operate by one set of rules for them and govern the Bahamian people by another set then maybe they should let us know. Ballsy, but don’t wait for it, madam. They are showing you what they intend to do. They run tings. How you miss that memo?

Oil exploration

Associated Press News carried a story recently, by Matthew Daly, titled “US bars Atlantic drilling”. It read: “In a major reversal, the Obama administration said Tuesday it will bar oil drilling off America’s Atlantic Coast, a move cheered by environmentalists and consistent with the president’s aggressive steps to combat climate change.

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said the decision “protects the Atlantic for future generations”. She said the administration had listened to thousands of people in coastal communities from Florida to New England who said, “Now is not the time to start leasing off the Atlantic Coast”.

However, business groups and most Republicans criticised it as another example of what they call executive overreach. The decision reverses a proposal made last year in which the administration floated a plan that would have opened up a broad swath of the Atlantic Coast to drilling. That January 2015 proposal would have opened up sites more than 50 miles off Virginia, North and South Carolina and Georgia to oil drilling no earlier than 2021.”

Meanwhile, in the Bahamas, where life is the wrong side up and the wrong way round, and apparently a couple decades behind the eight ball, the Bahamas Petroleum Company (BPC) just got a licence renewal through 2018, with their first exploratory well to be started a year from now.

Yet, oil production is up, prices are down and the competitive nature of oil in/by the Bahamas is questionable.

More to the point, in a time when renewable energies are being markedly developed and utilised, when we have the sun, the wind, water, and waste to convert to energy and power the things we enjoy daily, even if the initial outlay is greater, we’re still looking to be a part of damaging the environment on which we rely so heavily.

Why are we still looking to use the antiquated methods of drilling into the sea floor looking for oil that might be there? We already know the potential non-financial costs of this.

And whether you believe in climate change or not, the fact remains that there are other, cleaner, reliable options for energy supply.

But, of course, the capitalist way of finding the cheapest source of energy that makes the most profit and keeps the power, opportunity and wealth in the hands of the wealthy few is being advanced in spite of the options.

Just using common sense, do we not think that what you’re drilling for from the underground is there for a reason other than powering cars and jets?

And if you pull it out from the earth, the earth will at some point answer back and hold you accountable for that withdrawal?

I suppose as long as payback doesn’t happen in your lifetime then it shouldn’t matter.

Who’s abusing who?

Peter Nygard sues The Tribune, Save The Bays, Minnis, Pintard, etc ... but no Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) members of course. He’s suing for libel and “abuse of the Supreme Court and Parliament”.

What of Nygard’s abuses of the Bahamian people and their land? Can we sue him for that?

He wants an injunction to restrict “further acts intended to harm or likely to harm his economic or other legal interests”, and an injunction restricting defendants in the lawsuit from committing “further libel or slander against him”.

So will he sue the whole Bahamas then? Because as far as I can tell no one is on his side except him and the PLP leadership.

Moreover, Nygard wants the defendants to declare that they abused the Supreme Court and (Minnis in) the office of Opposition Leader.

I can only chuckle.

Numbers limit

There was a notice in the newspaper just the other day about a licence application by Chances Games - and it is somewhat confusing? I thought there was a maximum number of number houses to be accepted/licenced and that the licensing process was already complete as of 2015, with those being granted approval already receiving it?

The recent notice says anyone can object to the application, but they must provide full particulars of their objection, with name, address, and phone number by 5pm on April 13?

Well, shouldn’t the government/the Gaming Board itself object, they being responsible for this notice, if the door is closed to new licences for number houses? But wasn’t Chances Games/Jarol Investments already awarded a licence last October? What am I missing? How many licences can/must they apply for? Or do they need licences for all the locations they currently have open throughout the islands and have not yet obtained them?

Loser tunes

A CLICO policy holder was interviewed on television the other day, as he and scores of others were to receive their long-awaited insurance money, standing in a church yard. He was in good spirits, saying he was just hanging in there with his carpentry work. He said “I used to losing”. And though this is serious business all I could think was that’s another Bahamian theme. KB, are you listening? Write a song for us with this theme, please. Intro line: “I’s Bahamian ... I used to losing” ... and credit Mr Curry for the line.

Party poopers

Watching the FNM fall apart is painful, especially knowing the high calibre and impassioned characters their original and early leaders possessed.

But, hey, there’s an opportunity here; the weaker the FNM becomes, the stronger the Democratic National Alliance (DNA) can be. Let the FNMs who are royally disgusted with their leaders’ antics, and would never vote ‘PLP’, move to cast their votes with the DNA as the country’s last hope in a hell both the PLP and FNM helped to create and sustain.

The problem is now the DNA needs to do more to deserve that confidence: be more present, be more vocal, be firmer on issues affecting Bahamians most directly, not mostly or solely the political football issues where leaders seek to gain political mileage as their primary goal.

Send email to nburrows at tribunemedia.net