Speaker’s prolonged stay unacceptable, says opposition
(CNS): Opposition Leader Roy McTaggart said last night that it was unacceptable for Speaker McKeeva Bush to remain in office until at least 30 November. He also questioned whether or not Bush would actually step down, given that his resignation letter has not been made public and this is not the first time he has claimed he would resign.
Following the announcement yesterday that Bush does not plan to vacate the speaker’s chair for another eight weeks, McTaggart said it was unacceptable to the opposition and likely to the public and should be to every MP.
McTaggart called on Deputy Speaker Kathy Ebanks-Wilks to accept the opposition’s motion so that a no-confidence vote could take place when parliament meets tomorrow, which could pave the way for Bush’s immediate removal rather than allowing him to cling on until the end of next month.
Bush is under pressure to resign in the face of a scandal surrounding allegations of sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour while he was drunk at an official government cocktail party.
“We insist that our motion of a lack of confidence in the Speaker must be heard,” McTaggart said in a public statement issued late last night following Bush’s resignation announcement on Radio Cayman, Wednesday evening. He said it would be “both an affront to democratic principles and a breach of good governance” for their no-confidence motion to be hijacked by the deputy speaker, adding that the motion would bring “certainty to this unfortunate situation as well as ensure confidence in the Parliament”.
McTaggart pointed out that the opposition’s no-confidence motion was not out of time. He said it was filed on Friday, 30 September, in accordance with the letter from the clerk advising that the parliament would be meeting Friday, 7 October, and the deadline for submission of motions was 5pm last Friday, the day it was filed.
McTaggart even challenged how genuine Bush’s claim he would step down was. “This is the second pronouncement of the Speaker that he will resign. Where is the resignation letter?” he asked. McTaggart said that the deputy speaker had said she would explain why she had denied the motion by noon today because she was too busy to answer their query yesterday.
“We look forward to her response,” the opposition leader said. “I again confirm that the motion of a Lack of Confidence in the Speaker complies in every material respect with the Standing Orders of Parliament.”
See all the statements issued about this issue in the CNS Library.
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Category: Politics
All of us deserve better from this PACT govt. Isn’t it Roper job to ensure good Governance? Where is he when he is needed?
Bush is a disgrace to the good people of the Cayman Islands, especially to its women.
Here you go Roy. I just copied this from the Parliament Standing Orders. Give them a BIG (f)!
(9) The following motions may be made without notice —
(a) that a petition or other paper do lie on the Table, be printed or be rejected;
(b) to refer a Bill or any other matter to a select committee;
(c) for the withdrawal of a Bill under Standing Order 58 (Withdrawal of Bills);
(d) for the withdrawal of strangers;
(e) relating to a matter of privilege;
(f) for the suspension of a Member;
Except he’s not moving to Suspend McKeeva as Member, so that section of the standing orders don’t matter. – This is all going to hinge on how the LA counts days for submission of bills. Arcane and seemingly hard to find.
If the Speaker is a Member and you suspend the Member then you have suspended the Speaker.
This country is an absolute joke. What a pity, such potential but destroyed by a few feuding parishes.
if His Excellency the Governor OBE was shocked before, I have to ask, what is his state of mind now, elevated shockness or something completely different ? Please let me know Mr Roper, without your guiding paradigm I’m lost, much like our other leaders
I’ve said it a million times, he won’t say or do anything. He’s here to keep his mouth shut and turn a blind eye.
We must really wonder how he feels about the investigative pace of his own RCIPS branch, who haven’t yet referred the investigation file to judiciary’s DPP’s desk for consideration. Almost a month later with a ballroom full of corroborating eye witnesses, including guards, and CCTV, and the RCIPS are still befuddled.
The good and decent people of these Cayman Islands deserve so much better than the Billy Smarts circus of politicians they have. Slim pickings.
Mac is up to something stay tuned……..
Mac and UDPact are all up to something.
They’re behaving like a bunch of corrupt Banana republic despots by denying a motion properly submitted by the opposition, in favor of Seymour’s childish “aren’t we wonderful “
motion.
Really troublesome disregard for the rule of law.
It is unacceptable. He should have resigned effective Wednesday and let the election of the new Speaker happen in tomorrow’s sitting of the Parliament; but no. Instead he will most likely subject the islands to fourty minutes of a farewell diatribe. Please kill me now.
Fourty? You deserve it.
Roy please bring a motion of no confidence in both the Speaker (for obvious reasons) and the Deputy Speaker for failure to comply with Standing Orders. If you don’t want to do that then please initiate a judicial review of the Deputy Speaker’s unlawful decision – that was an administrative decision by a public official after all.
Things are starting to make sense.
PACT chose to not have a Parliamentary Code of Conduct that might constrain unlawful acts despite their promises to the electorate and Section 2.4 of the Ministerial Code only requires Ministers to comply with laws that they deem to be ‘relevant’ at any particular time rather than all of our laws all of the time.
https://www.gov.ky/publication-detail/ministerial-code-of-conduct-v11-27.07.21
Perhaps those observations might go some way to explaining why the no confidence motion was rejected?
Can we just for once forget the politics and do what is RIGHT?
should have done the right thing years ago but slippery eel keeps getting away.
Strategic blunder by PACT. The PPM motion would have effectively put Bush out to the far end of the House all by himself. And would have precluded him from joining any PPM led coalition. So PACT is still at risk of splintering by way of a Cayman style “coup” with Bush still in play.
PACT is far too splintered to have survived this any other way.
you mean to have survived if they bothered to follow the law? If so we agree.
Notice how silent the Deputy Premier is on all of this. Not one peep of support for the Premier – the vulture is circling Wayne.
Please use the correct reference – ‘Premier in Waiting but only for a few weeks more’
Games, games, games they all need to go! Very disappointed in Kathy, no spine either. Boi she sold out fast!
2.01pm For sure, once Bush has been demoted there’s no way she will take his place, she should never have been appointed Deputy Speaker in the first place.
any comment mr governor?
“I completely agree with and support our Honourable Premier”.
Roy you are correct. A November 30th resignation is not acceptable. We the people are tired of these games.
If all existing members of parliament do not possess the fortitude to do the right thing and insist on a resignation NOW then it speaks volumes of their poor character.
Cayman wake up and speak up. How can you sit by and allow a few to dictate for all of us! Forget about the handouts or favours you may have received and think about your kids and grandkids and stop being selfish.
Poor Roy!
FFS – please someone shut the PPM up for one second! Bush will obviously have to stick around to transition the Speaker role to the next person. Government is actually lucky he didn’t just leave them with all the papers in hand.
Hate him or not – like the situation or not – Bush is the most experienced politician sitting in that building and he knows the ropes inside and out.
Rubbish on steroids.
Parliamentary standing orders, the Constitution and all other relevant materials are written in our laws and other texts. Presumably the Deputy Speaker can read but with PACT that may be a big assumption.
Congratulations on posting the most stupid, wrong-headed, ignorant comment of the week.
there is no one to transition the role to until Mac resigns and a new speaker is chosen. he should resign and allow Parliament to choose a new Speaker, and he can then assist if needed. Otherwise, this is just rot.
Instead of playing the ropes he is trying to avoid them being used to hang him…
Standing orders require motions to be submitted 5”clear days” before the House sits. The day the House sits shouldn’t count, not should the day the motion is filed. So if “days” are business days rather than calendar days, it’s out of time. If it’s calendar days , it’s not. Surely can’t be that hard to confirm either way.
If you look at our Parliament’s Standing Orders as well as UK Parliamentary procedure (Erskine May etc.) you will see that “clear days” refer to calendar days not business days. The motion was legally submitted.
https://legislation.gov.ky/cms/legislation/current/by-title.html?view=acts_alpha
If you want to be charitable, assume that the reason that the Deputy Speaker purported to refuse the motion had more to do with ‘daze’ than ‘days’. However, keep in mind that we are dealing with a group who don’t respect our laws in general.
Of course clear days refers to calendar days, but it was cloudy all last week.
Clear day doesn’t mean “full” day?
How do weekends count?
1…2…3…. Same as week days…
They don’t count for lots of short periods under 10 days. What about this one.
If Bush’s unfit to be Speaker, then he’s also unfit to serve as MP for same reasons. Someone violating their probationary non-custodial sentence and presumably facing new charges, doesn’t get to define the timing of their departure and immediate remand to Northward.
Roy, Please file no confidence motions with respect to both the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker. The only hope of restoring some sense of dignity within the Cayman Islands is to get rid of both of them.
The RCIPS and DPP are in control of the tempo and tune, not Bush, and not any of the other Parliamentarians. DPP office should have put this at the top of their priority list weeks ago, and we can only wonder why that didn’t happen. Their fear and/or ineptitude is what continues to destabilise the Cayman Islands, and what keeps us in well in scope of international Grey and Blacklistings. The FCO should initiate an outside review of our impaired justice apparatus. Bush is just a recurring headline symptom of how it keeps failing us.
So his investigation should come before a murder investigation?
Seriously?
Don’t worry, the dawdling RCIPS haven’t even submitted the file for DPP consideration. Maybe next week, or the week after, or…
Oops, we lost it.
There is no notice period for the position of Speaker so it does merit questioning why the Speaker would resign with an effective date of 30 Nov. When you resign as Speaker you simply cease to act in that role immediately.
Roy – the issue of whether the refusal to accept your no confidence motion was lawful is a Constitutional one of great importance. PACT has made a deal with the devil and will not back down no matter what the law says. Should not an emergency application to the Grand Court be made to determine the issue?
Roy, just say it. You and I both know this is their way of not having to publicly declare their support or lack thereof for Big Mac, thereby resulting in PACT folding like a cheap suit in a Florida casino.
For once I agree with Roy.
McKeeva should be out by the end of the day.
Where are you PACT? You may not be a “party” but you are still the government. Hurry up with your meetings or whatever you are doing and take a position, in public.
Finally, the Opposition is right about something. The Speaker’s proposed stay is ridiculous. He should be out NOW.
Bushy has no intention of resigning unless he is found guilty in the court, just like Miss Cayman. You do not want to falsely ruin his reputation.And you have to give Kenny time to review things which will take a really long time, heck he is still looking into the Miss Cayman fiasco.
Hilarious! I hope you are jesting, 11:37
Not a fan, but ny thoughts exactly.
Given how Cayman works, that 2 months delay should be more than enough to let this blow over and we’ll all forget about it and move on without calling Mac’s bluff here.
Whatever happened to same sex unions causing the islands to sink as so declared by the church lobby, juju and crew?
Same anti-Christ drivel that has NOTHING to do with this topic.
You need to repent and have faith in God if you’d like to have everlasting life. If not, continue on.
Rest your ego aside and admit you were wrong or hush ya keyboard and go on in peace to your church. Leave me and let me be in the same manner.
Oh it’s sinking so fast you just have to wonder
We all know why they won’t allow it, as it will force them to choose between holding their piecemeal marl road government together or going on public record as supporting Mac. Cowards and hypocrites every one of them.