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PUP Stages Senate Walkout, Protesting President
Fri, May 19, 2017
Today's regular senate meeting wasn't regular at all. That's because the opposition opened up asking to make what's called "a privileged statement". They wanted to talk about the menacing and deliberately disruptive behavior pulled off by UDP operatives at the Senate Special Inquiry on Wednesday. But, to make a privileged statement, there has to be advance notice and permission from the president. The PUP didn't have that permission, and so they started out the meeting with a defiant tone. Here's how it went:...

Hon. Lee Mark Chang, President of the Senate
"I just speak with your senator earlier and I already told him I declined and it won't happen. Thank you."

Hon. Michel Chebat, PUP Senator
"You will not allow me to speak Mr. President."

Hon. Lee Mark Chang, President of the Senate
"No, because we have spoken about it already."

Hon. Michael Peyrefitte, UDP Senator
"This was discusses already with the former Prime Minister Musa in the national assembly. There is no privilege here like that."

Hon. Lee Mark Chang, President of the Senate
"Senator Chebat, please let us continue our sitting today. Next time if you want, send it in writing one hour before and then we can proceed."

Hon. Michel Chebat, PUP Senator
"Mr. President, you were advised an hour before at about 8:30 this morning that we'd be making this motion."

Hon. Lee Mark Chang, President of the Senate
"Senator, I was not advised an hour before. When the phone call came it was after 9am. Senator Courtenay can attest to that."

Hon. Eamon Courtenay, PUP Senator
"Mr. President, I will attest to the fact that exactly 8:37 this morning..."

Hon. Lee Mark Chang, President of the Senate
"There was a phone call that came in at 8:37 and it was not answered, Senator Courtenay. You return a call after 9am. Senator Courtenay, we have already been through this in the back already. Let us move on please."

Hon. Eamon Courtenay, PUP Senator
"We do not unfortunately accept that you can muzzle us like this and therefore in protest we are leaving the senate for today's sitting and we want to put on record our condemnation of what happen here on Wednesday on the assault on the press and we are now leaving."

Outside, PUP Senators Chebat and Courtenay explained what they were trying to do, and why they felt muzzled on a matter of public interest:

Hon. Michel Chebat, PUP Senator
"The standing orders of the senate allows us to make as what is called a privilege motion. It requires that notice of the motion be given to the president at least one hour before. We attempted to do that this morning. A call was placed to him, despite that he refused to accept that as notice and he exercise his authority which we reject."

Hon. Eamon Courtenay, PUP Senator
"The president accepts that he was called before one hour. He didn't take the call and then when we pointed it out to him, he just uses another standing order to stop us."

"I just want to be clear, because he referred to us talking at the back. At the back we were making it clear to him that we wanted to say what we are supposed to say and that we had a right to say it. We did not agree with him that he could muzzle us."

"I said to him sir you would not allow us to speak and he said straight to my face I will not allow it under any circumstances. They are muzzling representatives of the people in the house, they are muzzling senators appointed to represent the opposition."

Reporter
"Now our understanding as well was that the opposition was trying to get the social partners as well in their bid to walk out if a statement was not allowed to be made or even if a statement has been made. Are you able to share if that was the case and why that could not happen?"

Hon. Eamon Courtenay, PUP Senator
"Quite frankly what the situation was that we were in consultation with the social and their view was that we should make a statement and that they would also make a statement condemning it. We felt that we for the People's United Party wanted to go one step further and that we would protest by walking out of today's sitting. We consulted with them on that and they felt that they wanted to participate with the other matters that were on the agenda for today and so they said they would associate themselves with our protest by speaking strongly and condemning what happen. But they did not want to go as far as to walk out, because they wanted to debate those other matters."

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