The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

The FNM tried to erect a wall of protection around Reece Chipman, the MP for Centreville, but it is looking pointless because he is a loose cannon who keeps lobbing cheap shots across the Prime Minister’s bow.

There is such a thing as party unity. Perhaps Mr. Chipman has heard of it. There is also the matter of deference due to the leader of your party.

Apparently, Mr. Chipman is still smarting over the fact that the PM asked for his resignation as chairman of a public corporation. These positions are the gift of a Prime Minister and it is his right to bestow and recall.

Apparently Chipman had something in his craw and no PM/party leader was going to put him off his mission.

In his mind, political colleagues, civil servants and all and sundry are against him justifying his crusade to prove that everyone except him is singing off key in Hubert Minnis’ choir.

Being hauled onto the carpet by the Prime Minister is bad enough for any appointee to contemplate. By refusing to acquiesce to the courtesy extended by the PM to allow him to resign gracefully, Chipman appeared belligerent and spoiled, leaving the PM with a clear threat to his authority and with no other option than to fire him from the corporation. His seat in parliament is safe.

For now.

Whatever the merits of his argument, there is a time, a place and a method for airing differences in a political party.

None of these were to his liking so Chipman instinctively chose the wrong time, the wrong place and the wrong process.

The Prime Minister showed restraint in declining press invitations to say what the specific transgressions were that got Chipman fired.

Sometimes sleeping dogs must be left alone.

Undeterred, Chipman is taking legal advice on whether to sue the Prime Minister for defamation! He faces an uphill battle were he to pursue this reckless course of action.

Defamation is a legal rocky road.

The minutia of Chipman’s allegation won’t be discussed here but suffice it to say that any alleged inference of defamation shifts to the accuser the burden of proving that the defendant intended or knew that damaging inference could be drawn.

Context matters. How did the PM communicate this alleged defamation? (In an on-the-fly exchange with the press).

Did the PM study how readers and viewers would take his press tete-a-tete? Probably not.

In fact, it could be argued that given what he must know the PM showed considerable restraint and respect for his parliamentary colleague by painstakingly avoiding the salacious soundbites that the press was hoping for.

There is an old saying in the southern United States of which Chipman ought to take note.

“Sometimes you gotta dance with the one that brung ya to the prom.”

Chipman is wasting resources and goodwill retaining lawyers to look up cases far and wide where disgruntled politicians are suing leaders with whom they had fallen out of favour.

He cited an on-going matter in Australia where a former (not sitting) MP is taking a whack at the Prime Minister.

Closer to home, in Antigua, it is an opposition MP who is suing the Prime Minister.

There the Prime Minister took it all in stride even challenging the MP to bring it on.

Mr. Chipman should note that a group of prominent Caribbean lawyers concluded that the tit-for-tat between the PM and the MP was no more than the normal cut and thrust of political jousting, not defamation.

Chipman should further vet his case studies if they are to inform his decision to sue Dr. Minnis.

The same Antiguan MP cited by Chipman was previously forced to deny that he was the owner of a strip club in Antigua before said club was destroyed by fire.

He claimed at the time that there was a clear distinction between the business he owned and the image for ill-repute that surrounded it.

Nine years ago, that same MP was forced to resign as deputy prime minister of Antigua amid allegations of corruption. Even his own party’s Prime Minister refused to back him.

It is intentionally hard for defamation litigation to succeed.

In this case, Chipman would be opening himself up to a powerful rebuttal onslaught by the PM’s team, legal and political.

It is a safe bet that most people think Chipman’s claims are much to do about nothing.

And crucially, while Chipman exercises his freedom of speech, he forgets that Minnis enjoys the same right and even though for now he has turned the other cheek, the PM can and probably will, eventually punch back.

But even if Chipman sues and wins, he will still end up the loser.

He will lose his political career, such as it is.

He will be seen as a cry-baby and whiner and not as a team player.

The summation of Chipman’s case would be thus: Judge, I am suing this politician for having the temerity to play politics.

The courts should offer no redress for people in the political arena who get their feelings hurt.

Chipman would be well advised to quit digging his political grave, quietly ride the back bench and “sit small until his name call”.

THE GRADUATE

Nassau,

April 9, 2018