Earl Moxam, Senior Gleaner Writer
SAMUDA
It is now down to the question of whether he did or did not deliberately mislead the House.
That's the issue that Karl Samuda, MP for North Central St. Andrew, will be asked to settle when he appears before
the Privileges Committee of Parliament to explain his motive for bringing the now infamous Noel Hylton "Report" on the Sandals Whitehouse project to the House of Representatives.
After a well researched and forceful presentation to the Privileges Committee by Opposition Leader, Bruce Golding, the Speaker of the House, Michael Peart, who chairs the committee, suggested that Mr. Samuda be invited to attend the next meeting to explain his motives.
Not deliberately
Citing several authorities from the United Kingdom House of Commons and elsewhere in the Commonwealth, Mr. Golding argued that, given all the circumstances, Mr. Samuda did not deliberately mislead the House when he spoke in June 2006.
In that statement, Mr. Samuda claimed that Mr. Hylton had submitted a report to Prime Minister P.J. Patterson on the Sandals Whitehouse hotel project. Mr. Hylton subsequently denied that he had submitted any such report, throwing into doubt the authenticity of the MP's
assertions in Parliament.
As a consequence, a censure motion was brought against Mr. Samuda by government member Donald Buchanan, in September 2006, accusing him of breaching parliamentary privilege and of being in contempt of the House. This motion was carried by the governing party's superior numbers in the legislature and then referred to the Privileges Committee for action to be taken against the "errant" MP.
Mr. Patterson had appointed Mr. Hylton, a highly respected public
servant, to meet with the parties regarding disputes surrounding the hotel construction project, in an attempt to arrive at a common position on the issues and, subsequently, report to him.
Mr. Samuda got hold of a document, purported to be a copy of Mr. Hylton's report to the then Prime Minister, and flourished it in Parliament to challenge the veracity of the government's assertions on the matter.
Censure motion
Mr. Hylton denied, in writing, that he had submitted a report, giving rise to the censure motion. He subsequently confirmed, however, that he did draft a report, but never submitted it.
Relying partly on the strength of that admission by Mr. Hylton, the Opposition Leader argued that it was not unreasonable for Mr. Samuda to have believed that the document he had obtained was a copy of the expected report. On that basis he said that it was clear that there was no intention on Mr. Samuda's part to mislead Parliament.
"If you deliberately mislead, or attempt to deliberately mislead the House, you can be caught for contempt, but I emphasise the word, 'deliberately'", Mr. Golding stressed.
On that note, the members agreed to invite Mr. Samuda to attend the next meeting.
