MEMBERS OF the media were yesterday barred from accessing the lobby area just outside Parliament's chamber where Foreign Affairs Minister K.D. Knight recently used an expletive to scold Local Government Minister Portia Simpson Miller.
The Gleaner tried to access the area, but a number of policemen and women said it was no longer accessible to reporters. They explained that the area was supposed to be inaccessible to reporters from long ago, but this rule was not enforced. It is understood that at least one other reporter was also barred from accessing the lobby.
NO AUTHORITY
But Shirley Lewis, the Clerk of the Houses of Parliament, told The Gleaner yesterday the police had no authority to bar reporters from accessing the area. At least not yet.
"The House Speaker and the President [of the Senate] are in the process of making new rules, and these rules have not been signed off on yet," she said. She added that both House Speaker Michael Peart and Senate President Syringa Marshall-Burnett are to meet this morning to sign off on the new rules.
"I suppose they (police) were dropping their guns a little," Mrs. Lewis said. When asked who had authorised them to prevent reporters accessing the lobby area, Mrs. Lewis said: "I don't know. I certainly didn't and I don't think the House Speaker did."
Contacted yesterday, Super-intendent Carlton Wilson, head of the Kingston Central Police Division which has overall responsibility for Parliament, said the lobby area is off limits to reporters.
"Reporters should go to the gallery upstairs," he said, adding that the lobby is reserved for Senators, Members of Parliament and their security detail.
"This is a long-standing rule of the House. I've not looked at the Standing Orders but I think this is a part of it," he said.
In April, The Gleaner reported that during a sitting of the House of Representatives, Mrs. Simpson Miller drew the ire of Mr. Knight who told her an expletive just before they entered the chamber. The incident occurred in front of Prime Minister P.J. Patterson.
Mr. Knight's expletive was
in criticism of the Local Government Minister's abstention on an Opposition motion calling for increased allocation to her Ministry to better equip the fire service.
