Mark Beckford, Gleaner Writer

Derrick Smith (left), Jamaica Labour Party Deputy Leader, prepares to make his presentation yesterday at the party's St. Andrew Western Constituency Area Council One meeting held at Duhaney Park Primary School, St. Andrew, while Desmond McKenzie, Area Council One chairman, looks on. - Norman Grindley/Deputy Chief Photographer

The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Opposition declared yesterday that they would be at a disadvantage as only the backs of its members' heads will be seen by journalists in Parliament if new restrictions on medias covering sittings of the House of Represen-tatives and the Senate remain.

Derrick Smith, JLP deputy leader and Leader of Opposition Business in the House, said the Opposition would not be tolerating House Speaker Michael Peart's decision to block reporters from entering the section of the gallery reserved for Hansard writers.

He said that, as a result of the House Speaker's ruling, members of the media, who will be forced to sit above the Opposition, will not be able to videotape or take photo-graphs of their faces.

"If that ruling could ever stand, and we are demanding that it does not stand, you will never see the face of the Labourites in Parliament. You will only be able to recognise them from back ways," Mr Smith told supporters at JLP Area Council One meeting at Duhaney Park Primary yesterday.

Members of the media have been banned from the section of the gallery reserved for Hansard writers and overlooking the Government benches in Parliament. The House Speaker had a door erected to block reporters shortly after the publication in the Observer newspaper of a photograph of Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller "doodling" during a recent sitting of Parliament.

Mr. Smith described the action by the House Speaker as a clumsy attempt to restrict the media in this country and said the current press gallery was inadequate for the number of media in the country.

Senator Christopher Tufton, President of Generation 2000 (G2K), also adding his voice to condemnation of the decision by the House Speaker, described the move as 'strong-armed' and a violation of one of the important institutions of the society.

"The attempts to restrict the media are a case of political arrogance not political protocol," Senator Tufton said. "It is wrong, it is immoral and it demonstrates a government that is arrogant and does not care about the country."