Premier Alden McLaughlin has said he has not planned any further meetings of Parliament before it is set to be dissolved to make way for the 26 May general elections.
This means if Opposition Leader Arden McLean and North Side MP Ezzard Miller want to have their motion of no confidence in House Speaker McKeeva Bush debated in Parliament they may have to trigger a special sitting.
However, McLaughlin, responding to questions at Thursday’s COVID-19 media briefing, said he does not believe that sitting will happen.
“Unfortunately for them, I am told there are only two opposition members who are prepared to proceed with this matter, being the opposition leader and the member for North Side… I have said what the government’s position is on this matter. Before they try to trigger a meeting of the House they have to get their own house in order,” McLaughlin said.
While he said it is still within the realm of possibility that a sitting could be called, McLaughlin suggested it was not necessary for government.
“We never know what is going to happen, but we have ticked almost every box on the legislative front that we needed to do. There are seven weeks to run before this term expires; the government has got lots of things to do which we are getting on with. This press conference is one of them,” he said.
Even if the House is not called to be prorogued by lawmakers the governor can dissolve Parliament as required by the Constitution ahead of Nomination Day, which is 31 March.
Under Standing Order 8(2) of Parliament, the presiding officer, the Speaker or Deputy Speaker, depending on who is presiding at the time, may call a meeting of the House with a written requisition signed by seven members, stating the terms of the motion or motions which they wish to debate.
The clerk of the house shall give MPs notice of any such meeting as soon as possible.
Moves are currently being made by the Opposition to have a special meeting called.
Last week, McLean and Miller filed the motion seeking to have Bush removed after he was convicted back in December on three assault charges following an altercation at a local bar involving the female manager.
This is not the first attempt by legislators to remove Bush. Last year a similar motion was overruled by deputy speaker Barbara Conolly on the grounds that it was sub judice, meaning at that time the case against Bush was still in court.
Prior to that motion, the Opposition attempted to call a special sitting of the House, but could not get the necessary numbers after George Town Central MP Kenneth Bryan opted not to support it.
McLaughlin, when asked at the Thursday briefing if the House would be called, simply said, “I don’t know,” later adding that he was not planning one.
Noting that a bill has already been gazetted, McLaughlin explained more legislation can be published but doesn’t mean the House will sit.
Those proposed laws, he said, would fall away if the Parliament is dissolved before they are taken to the House for debate. However, he said, the issues that the bills address would remain.
“One of the complaints most of time is there isn’t adequate consultation at the time. So what I am saying is that as bills get prepared, we will put them out for consultation in the usual way,” he said.
As for the no confidence motion, McLaughlin said he has already made his position clear.
He has said the motion is a “publicity stunt” by the Opposition.
McLaughlin, speaking at the Chamber of Commerce AGM last week, said had things been different in February last year when he first learned of the Bush incident while he was in London, he would have acted differently.
At that time, he said, the pandemic was just starting and Cayman was uncertain about a lot of things, such as procuring tests. He maintains that had he taken any action on Bush then or now it would have led to the collapse of the government.
He said on Thursday that calling a special meeting is not a matter for the government, but the Opposition.
The Cayman Compass reached out to McLean and Miller for comment, but had not received a response by publication.
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