’The day that ordinary men and women are intimidated to the extension that they refrain from scrutinising or making outspoken, though respectful criticisms of members of Parliament, is the day we are heading towards totalitarianism,’ Independent Senator Dana Seetahal said yesterday.

Responding to the move by Government to have her brought before the Privileges Committee of the House of Representatives, for statements made in her weekly column published in the Sunday Guardian, which Government deemed to be an attack on the House Speaker Barry Sinanan, Seetahal said she had consulted with fellow Senior Counsel on the issue.

’We are of the unanimous view that the impugned sentences in my column...amount to no more than a factual commentary on what occurred in the House the preceding week. Not even a ’bush lawyer’ could construe what was said as calling into question the conduct of the Speaker or suggesting that he was partial in any way,’ she said, at a news conference held in the Parliament committee room during the tea break.

Seetahal had stated in her column that ’the debate on the Validation bill devolved into name-calling and bad-mouthing and the fact that this was allowed to happen must surely lie with the Speaker of the House, who is responsible for regulating the conduct of business in the House.’ She added that ’standing order after standing order was breached and no one was called to task’.

Seetahal stated that she had often been guided by the words of the Privy Council in a 1936 case from Trinidad and Tobago in which the Law Lords, among other things, stated: ’Justice is not a cloistered virtue: she must be allowed to suffer the scrutiny and respectful even though outspoken comment of ordinary men’. She said this words applied equally to Parliament and parliamentarians.

Seetahal said she was also guided by the Constitution which guarantees citizens, among other things, freedom of expression and freedom of the press.

Seetahal said she was intrigued by Information Minister Neil Parsanlal’s vigilance in seeking to protect the Speaker and trusted that he would prove equally vigilant in seeking to protect the rights of the ordinary citizens ’who too often see themselves as powerless in these times’.

She added that she was also fascinated by the Minister’s apparent respect for proper parliamentary procedure and behaviour and expected that this will translate to all MPs, notably Government MPs- not being irrelevant, offensive or insulting.