By Patricia Mukhim
This is the penultimate article of the year and we are in the festive season. It is incongruous therefore to have a hard hitting article so close to Christmas. Yet some things have to be said. If they remain unsaid they will fester like an unattended wound and begin to stink. I am of course referring to the hyper-active Privileges Committee of the Meghalaya Assembly which is constituted to protect the privileges of an elected representative inside the House, so that he may speak the truth without fear or favour. It is unfortunate that a Committee which sets out to safeguard legislative privileges, namely to take up issues concerning the public, is now used as an instrument to challenge the rule of law.
This entire week the readers have given their unequivocal verdict that they will not stand by and allow undue hectoring by VIPs in public spaces. It is heartening to note that people have risen in defence of the rule of law being upheld by the guardians of the law. People are losing patience with VIP (mis)behaviour. They find it distasteful when VIPs strut around in their swanky, public-owned, public-maintained vehicles. Even the fuel (POL) they burn is paid for out of the public treasury. So what are they really showing off? This is the irony! Public servants think they are feudal lords who rule over us. We have, of course, brought all this upon ourselves by treating these VIPs like demi-gods.
Today there a huge emotional disconnect between the rulers and the ruled and this is getting intense with every passing election. Whether this emotional secession of the public from the political class is good or bad is difficult to say. What it tells us though is that people are tired of an elected class whose performance is suspect and who only use their statuses for personal power and pelf. Meghalaya is richly endowed with natural resources yet it has become poorer by the day. The surpluses it could have created by way of judicious management of those resources have been squandered like casino chips in the hands of a compulsive gambler on a monumental losing streak. And look at us! We are unable even to safeguard our political and geographical boundaries and here are our elected lords behaving as if we owe them obeisance!
Much has been said by the public about Mr Ronnie V Lyngdoh’s unbecoming behaviour when ticked off for wrong parking. Lyngdoh is the Chairperson of the Committee on Privileges of the Legislative Assembly. All of us outside the legislature are curious to know what the privileges of an MLA are and when those privileges are breached. Tomes have been written on this issue which is essentially a legacy of a colonial government. According to Wikipedia, parliamentary or legislative privilege is a legal immunity enjoyed by members of certain legislatures, whereby legislators are granted protection against civil or criminal liability for actions done or statements made while performing their duties as legislators. In the UK members of the House of Lords and House of Commons are allowed to speak freely during ordinary parliamentary/legislative proceedings without fear of legal action on the grounds of slander, contempt of court or breaching of the Official Secrets Act. Clearly this means that MPs/MLAs cannot be arrested for statements made or acts undertaken as an MP/MLA within the premises of Parliament/Legislative Assembly. They cannot claim those privileges outside the House.
The rights and privileges of members are overseen by the ‘powerful’ Committee on Standards and Privileges. If a member of the House breaches the rules then he/she can be suspended or even expelled from the House. Such past breaches have included giving false evidence before a Committee of the House and the taking of bribes by members. Parliamentary privilege is controversial because of its potential for abuse; a member can use privilege to make damaging allegations that would ordinarily be discouraged by defamation laws, without first determining whether those allegations have a strong foundation. In the case of the MLA from Mylliem this last statement appears to be true. There is a clause guiding the function of the Privileges Committee which says that in case the House finds a charge of breach of privilege groundless, it may order the payment of an amount not exceeding Rs 5000 as cost to the party charged, by the party complaining.
What is confusing in this case is why and how a complaint by a member, that his privileges have been breached, can be settled without the prior meeting of the Committee on Privileges. Should the Committee not have the deliberated on whether there was a prima facie breach of privilege by the two traffic police on the complainant (RV Lyngdoh), in the first place? And has not the Committee on Privileges been trivialised by the Chairperson himself when he decided to drop the complaint simply because he feels he has scored points over the police department by getting its top official to beg for mercy? What are we actually practising here? Has the sanctity of the Committee on Privileges not been violated and have legislative privileges not been vitiated by this single act? How can we the people who are the guardians of democracy allow the Privileges Committee to be brought down to the level of a kangaroo court?
The actual purpose of granting legislative immunity to an elected member of the Assembly is only so that she/he may discharge her/his duties within the House without restraint. For any other misconduct outside the House she/he is as liable as any member of the public to be hauled up under relevant sections of the law. Actually, privileges are the collective rights of the House and its Committees only. In the strictest sense, there is nothing to be called an individual member’s rights. Members can enjoy certain rights inherent in the House, that too only to the extent to which they are discharging the functions of the House.
Privilege doesn’t mean that an MLA is placed higher than a citizen in the matter of enjoyment of fundamental rights. The House is the guardian of its own privileges. Any violation, attack or disregard of privileges, rights and immunities, either of the House, its committees or individual members, subject to discharge of the functions of the House, is regarded as a breach of privilege. Was Mr Ronnie V Lyngdoh discharging the functions of the House at the time when he was issued the summons slip by the traffic police? If it was a personal matter (admittedly taking his wife to a doctor) he was attending to, then could he have claimed legislative privilege to park his vehicle in a ‘no parking zone?’ And not having been granted that ‘privilege’ did he have the right to drag the entire legislature into a purely personal matter?
It is time for a public debate on what actually constitutes “privilege” enjoyed by, or allowed to a legislator. This year there have been several summons issued to people and newspapers for exercising their freedom of speech. Most legislators are ‘touch me nots’ when it comes to public criticism. They believe in legislative immunity and impunity, both. Meghalaya has a prominent university (NEHU) and we expect political scientists there to step in and interpret these ‘legislative privileges’ which currently appear like the ‘holy cows’ of Meghalaya.