Yesterday in Parliament, Mark Golding challenged Juliet Holness’s independence as Speaker of the House.

Can she truly be impartial in that capacity while being married to the Prime Minister who is head of the government? There is no where in the world where this situation takes place and it raises governance issues. The optics do not look good .

The JLP has lambasted this challenge and views Mark Golding as a man without honour. Tom Tavares Finson, leader of the Senate has put out a statement saying exactly that.

When Juliet Holness was appointed Speaker of the Lower House of Representatives, she was appointed unopposed. The PNP had no objections at the time of appointment to ascension.

Presumably, the PNP’s lack of objection was due to the fact that as at that time, she had not demonstrated any action that would make her unqualified to hold the position.

Golding has now laid accusations at Juliet Holness of lack of independence by way of her failure to table reports from the Integrity Commission, failure to disclose the ‘Illicit 6”, as well as failure to order the Prime Minister, her husband, to submit his long outstanding statutory declarations which are years in arrears. But let us be straight – these accusations are not false and it is the job of the Speaker to defend her decisions, no one else.

The question to my mind is did the Prime Minister walk out because the accusations against the Speaker of the House were false or because challenges were made against his wife?

When one looks at when the walkout happened, Mark Golding had yet to state the reasons in Parliament why the Speaker was not independent. The statement made by Golding was that the head of Parliament being the spouse of the Head of Government does not sit well with the tradition of independence of the Speaker. The allegation was that the Speaker has not behaved with independence. Before Golding could give support for the allegation, the JLP lead by the Prime Minister walked out yelling “low!”. As they say – roll the tape.

On a peculiar side note, Speaker Juliet Holness was absent during the Leader of the Opposition’s response to the Budget address. At the very least, she should have done the courtesy of sitting for Golding’s budget presentation. That, by itself, gives some credence to what Golding was saying. It will surely come as no surprise when she is present for her husband’s speech on Thursday. A small observation that the goose and the gander do not get the same treatment.

But back to the issue at hand. One could argue that if Golding had made statements about the Speaker that were false, that would be legitimate grounds for a walkout. But since the support was not yet laid for Golding’s statement, one can only conclude that the leader of government walked out of Parliament because someone made a comment about his wife, not of a personal nature but about her conduct in the professional position she holds.

This is problematic on so many levels.

1. Firstly, Juliet Holness is more that capable of fighting her own battles. I don’t think anyone would disagree with that.
2. By the Prime Minister walking out and not leaving the matter for the Speaker to independently address, he has weakened Juliet Holness by making it appear that she cannot fight her own battles.
3. Thus, if Juliet Holness cannot fight her own battles, she has no business holding the position of Speaker of the House

The Prime Minister must have understood when the Speaker was appointed that at some point, there would likely have been an allegation of her independence being compromised due to their marriage. I refuse to believe that the Prime Minister is so naive as to not know that this was coming. But more importantly, I don’t think anyone believes that the Prime Minister would have responded in the same way (meaning by staging a walkout) if the Speaker of the House was not his wife. Herein lies the problem.

Many JLP members of parliament have had their independence and ethics challenged by the opposition. The Prime Minister did not walk out for them.

To respond in such a thin-skinned manner yesterday did not do the Prime Minister or his party any favours. He handed Mark Golding a win for the day on a silver platter – a rookie move from such an experienced politician. The Prime Minister took the bait.

Now, the public knows that the Prime Minister will never allow the Speaker’s independence to be challenged, which makes him look weak. Not allowing Juliet Holness to fight her own battles makes her look weak. But most glaring, at a time when governance is an important issue in Jamaica, is that the JLP has proved Golding’s point – there is no independence between the Speaker of the House and the Head of Government.

While everyone understands the instinct to defend your spouse, the game all of these Parliamentarians are playing is politics. Politics is a blood sport. It is not a place for feelings. If you don’t like your feelings being hurt and having your actions being challenged daily, get out.