Columns
Speaker’s year-end blues over green-light for live telecasts
Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa made history of sorts during the month-long Budget debate, first by allowing live telecasts of parliamnetary proceedings via a cable network and secondly allowing people free access to the public galleries. But by Friday when the business of the House wound up for this year, he was having second thoughts about at least one of those decisions.
The Speaker decided to allow live telecast of proceedings as the Budget debate got underway hoping that the standard of debates in the House would improve once MPs were aware that their performance on the floor of the House would be seen by their electors. But that appears to have been wishful thinking. One month into experimenting with live telecasting little has improved by way of decorum of some lawmakers or the standard of parliamentary debate.
So when Budget debate wound up last Friday evening, a rather glum looking Speaker announced he would have to reconsider this decision as he had observed that some MPs had behaved in a manner that was detrimental to the dignity of the august assembly and had used the floor of the House to utter unfair, untruthful and baseless allegations against people holding responsible positions in the country.
“If MPs do not act according to Standing Orders of Parliament and fail to uphold the age old traditions of this House, I will be forced to reconsider my decision about the live telecast,” the Speaker warned. Media and Information Minister Keheliya Rambukwella complained openly to the Speaker that UNP MP Ranjan Ramanayaka had made use of the facility provided to the people to follow live telecasts of proceedings to sling mud at him.
He said while the contents of the official record of Parliament proceedings in the Hansard go through a process of editing, live telecasts were not filtered in a similar manner. “While I appreciate the decision taken by the Speaker to allow live telecasts, steps should also be taken to bring new laws to allow defamation proceedings against those who use Parliamentary privilege to slander people,” Mr.Rambukwella said.
While Minister Rambukwella was angered by Mr.Ramanayaka’s comments, the rather inflammatory speech by UNP Matara District Mangala Samaraweera last week too had angered many — especially his haste to defend Prime Minister D.M.Jayaratne who was plagued throughout the Budget debate with questions over his alleged connections to the largest heroin haul in the country. Mr.Samarweera saw the attempts to draw the Prime Minister into the heroin case as a witch-hunt initiated by the Rajapaksa regime against senior members of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP).
Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa looks up at the giant screen at Parliament grounds on October 23, the first day on which House proceedings were telecast live
He was also strongly critical about the apportioning of monies from the Budget for various ministries charging that a few select ones were being favoured while others were getting step-motherly treatment.
The airing of this particular speech had prompted some Government members to question the wisdom of allowing live telecasts which also probably contributed to the announcement by the Speaker that the matter would have to be reconsidered. What is being contemplated in the new-year is a delayed telecast of two hours instead of the live telecast that was experimented with in the past month.
Meanwhile, President Mahinda Rajapaksa who wound up the Budget debate on Friday evening answered charges levelled by opposition members during the debate in addition to appreciating their positive contributions during the debate.
“There is a folk tale about the villager who took a sack of tamarind to sell to the trader (the mudalali) only to be told by the Mudalali that after he reduces the weight of the sack, the seeds and the husks of the tamarind, there is nothing left. “I want to tell the opposition that there is some tamarind in this Budget, so do not say there is nothing in it,” the President said.
As the Parliament sittings adjourned for the year, the Speaker said he hoped that both government and opposition members including ministers would take their legislative responsibility more seriously in the new year and participate and contribute more fruitfully in debates as well as in other Parliamentary business.
Only time will tell whether parliamentarians will heed his advice or not.