For once, Speaker Barry Sinanan was a big hit with the Opposition on Friday, when he granted a request to bring the management of UDecott before the Privileges Committee.

It was Dr Tim Gopeesingh who asked him to do so, after UDecott published a full-page advertisement in two newspapers on March 7 attacking the Caroni East MP.

Dr Gopeesingh’s offence had been to criticise UDecott while debating his motion condemning the Government for failing to provide decent healthcare. In one of a long list of shortcomings, he lamented that eight years after it was promised, the Pt Fortin hospital had still not been built. In this the Government was guilty of criminal neglect, he charged. The people of southwest Trinidad were left to die, while the Prime Minister got a $248 million mansion with $3,000 bedsheets and $168 pillows.

Dr Gopeesingh tossed in a vague reference to UDecott-which was entrusted with both projects-and corruption, before moving on to the Scarborough hospital.

But not soon enough. Three days later, Dr Gopeesingh’s remarks, which might otherwise have gone unnoticed, were making headlines in UDecott’s ad: ’Statement by Opposition MP reckless and irresponsible,’ it thundered.

 The ad might perhaps be described the same way, since UDecott could have replied through a press release, a press conference, or a letter to the Speaker, thus saving itself and the taxpayer $12,000 or so, not to mention its lawyers’ fees.

Instead UDecott’s board and management bought a page to mix explanations as to why Pt Fortin still has no hospital with complaints about Dr Gopeesingh’s ’spurious allegations.’ UDecott took ’great umbrage’ at his using ’the cloak and protection of parliamentary privilege to senselessly defame it.’ Not content merely to split an infinitive, the corporation even invited Dr Gopeesingh to step outside to settle the matter: that is, the advertisement called on him to repeat his statement outside the House.

Why? The inescapable conclusion is that UDecott wanted to sue him. It was, said the ad, ’seeking legal advice on the options available to it,’ including asking the Speaker for help.

It’s a pity UDecott didn’t take that option first, as it would then have discovered it had a right of reply: a measured (and free) response to Dr Gopeesingh’s remarks could have been read into the parliamentary record. Or, like an ordinary state entity, it could have responded through its line minister.

But although the ad revealed UDecott as not only hypersensitive but also worryingly ill-informed, it wasn’t entirely futile; although that was thanks to Dr Gopeesingh.

The ad was meant to bring him into public ridicule and odium, he argued, and, worse, UDecott, a body that is accountable to Parliament, was trying to intimidate an MP. The Speaker agreed on Friday that prima facie, a case of possible contempt of Parliament had been made out, and thus UDecott will be sent before the Privileges Committee.

This is a good thing, whatever the committee decides: the incident is a useful reminder of the meaning and importance of parliamentary privilege.

 UDecott isn’t alone in its failure to understand or appreciate this privilege. Last year an MP, Local Government Minister Hazel Manning, no less, suggested it should be ’reviewed,’ after Opposition Senator Wade Mark alleged that in a previous job she had received an allowance she wasn’t entitled to. Equally disturbingly, in 2004 Jamaican banker Michael Lee Chin actually brought a lawsuit against UNC MP Gerald Yetming. Mr Lee Chin filed his suit in Jamaica and Canada, however. And it never came to court, since Mr Yetming withdrew his offending remarks about bribery, so whether the action would have succeeded remains moot.

But Mr Lee Chin certainly couldn’t have sued here. Section 55 of the Constitution says: ’No civil or criminal proceedings may be instituted against any member of either House for words spoken before or written in a report to the House of which he is a member,’ or, in short, in any other parliamentary proceeding. That is, MPs can say anything they like in Parliament, and you can’t sue them for it.

There are regular protests, usually from the subjects of parliamentary revelations, that this right is abused, and that MPs slander the good names of innocent parties, as Udecott is complaining.

But parliamentary privilege is not only absolute, but absolutely necessary to a democracy. If MPs couldn’t speak freely, very few political scandals-corruption, abuse of power or position-would ever come to light. An Opposition party can’t defeat the Government by force of numbers, but it can name and, hopefully, shame offenders. And the Government uses it too to attack the Opposition (or even, these days, its own members).

So important is this right that it constitutes a breach of privilege to do anything that obstructs or prevents an MP from performing his duties, such as trying to intimidate or embarrass him. Hence UDecott, not Dr Gopeesingh, must now defend itself.

For MPs, the corollary to their absolute freedom of speech is that they are expected to use it responsibly and not make frivolous or unfounded accusations. After all, they are honourable members, every one.