Opposition Leader Marlon Penn has said that the recent step by Premier Andrew Fahie to establish a Select Committee to deliberate a matter which was already decided in the Supreme High Court is putting the BVI in similar light to that of North Korea.
Penn made that disclosure while debating the motion in the House of Assembly which will see the establishment of a Select Committee which will decide on whether Speaker of the House Julian Willock pays his more than $120,000 legal bill, or whether taxpayers will foot the cost using the Consolidated Fund.
Penn said he did not see the need for the establishment of any committee, considering that due process was already executed during the court proceedings which ruled that Willock was responsible as a private citizen to pay the legal fees from his discontinued injunction against the Commission of Inquiry’s three attorneys.
He said, “He had due process. We now in the house want to give due process? We have that authority, to give due process over the courts process? Is there something in the Standing Orders and something in the Constitution that speaks to that level of authority that we have as a House of Assembly that I don’t know about? We’re going on a slippery slope where at the bottom of the slope and this step makes us look familiar with North Korea. A level of dictatorship, where everything is controlled by one individual.”
He further warned, “We’re now interfering with the judicial, we’ve already taken over the House. We control the House now, the House is run by the Executive and the House is run by the same person. No wonder the House is here contemplating whether to pay a bill when the court was very clear on what needs to happen with this process, because when you put people to work you have to make sure they get pay. So whoever put the Speaker to work have to make sure that his bills are paid.”
Tactics being used by the premier – I will not be a part of this committee
Penn said that the evidence and the due process executed by the courts is as clear as day and that he was not going to be a part of the Committee as he deemed it and overreach of the judiciary and pointless.
“So the tactics and the constant delays, the smokescreens about a select committee and the fact that we’re going to use one member from every political party in the House, it’s just that, tactics and I want to make it clear. I’m not going to be on any select committee to further undermine, the sanctity of the judiciary system. The sanctity of the institution that we continue to discuss that we’re trying to build. We like to talk about the institutions and Independence of institutions, when it’s convenient, when the timing suits us,” he stated.
“The act of even bringing this resolution to this Honourable House to adjudicate something that was already adjudicated in the courts, the place for due process when it comes to legal action. The House of Assembly is not the place for due process of legal action. So you’re telling me that you’re going to establish a Select Committee to discuss a court matter and make a ruling on a court matter in the Honourable House of Assembly,” Penn questioned.
Also taking a similar stance to Penn was Opposition legislator Melvin ‘Mitch’ Turnbull, who said that he too wanted no part in the Select Committee as a decision was already handed down by courts who are authorized to make such a decision.