HOUSE Speaker Halson Moultrie is to hold “Open Parliaments” for the public each Wednesday starting next week.

While the House is not set to reconvene until September 22, Speaker Moultrie said most of the discussions with citizens will be held with himself and Chief Clerk David Forbes.

These sessions will be held for the most part at the Senate building, Parliament Square and the House of Assembly from 10am to 1pm.

This will continue either until Parliament is dissolved or until sittings of Parliament continue in September.

The Speaker’s announcement came as part of an attack on the continuation of Emergency Powers.

“The chains fell off in 1833 but we are witnesses of new chains of bondage, guised as Emergency Power Orders that discriminate, infringe Bahamians’ constitutional rights and challenge the very essence of our being,” Mr Moultrie said.

“As the countdown to end this unprecedented encroachment on civil liberties, in the form of COVID-19 protocols, approaches - the 13th of August, Bahamians face further threats to our freedom and additional concerns of our nation’s wellbeing.”

He pointed to a comment Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis made back in Julylast year when Bahamians travelled to the United States when the borders reopened that month. Dr Minnis admitted the administration considered prohibiting residents from leaving the country.

“Governments will be placed in situations where at some point in time they will have to make what they call discriminatory or unconstitutional decisions against their people in the interest of the advancement of their nation.”

Those comments came before parliamentarians passed a resolution extending the state of emergency to September 30, 2020.

The Speaker further also questioned the government on vaccinations.

He said: “If taking the COVID-19 vaccines is a matter of choice why are unvaccinated persons being denied while the vaccinated persons are given clearance when they are equally likely to contract the virus and more likely to inadvertently spread the virus?”

“… The fact that the government is permitting the intrusive emergency law and orders to expire on 13 August in my estimation is proof that government had available to it less intrusive means to serve public health purposes that need not violate civl liberties as the Emergency Orders have.”

Nonetheless, Speaker Moultrie said he would not stand in the way of government doing what it felt was necessary.

“I would not stand in their way because the government has a mandate on behalf of the people and once the government decides it wants to do something the Speaker is not to stand in the way. The Members of Parliament - that’s a resolution that the government would have to bring to the Parliament. The Speaker is a facilitator,” he explained.

The Speaker noted the current recess deprives duly elected members their privilege of effective representation and the Parliament “constitutional obligation to supervise and have oversight of Cabinet’s interim activities, expenditures and policies.”

He hopes the open parliament would deepen democracy, be educational and allow people to voice their grievance as the parliament is in recess.

“If they have grievances during this recess usually Parliament would be the place to ventilate those grievances by the representative members for each constituency but there’s no opportunity for that now because effectively Parliament has been prorogued and I say that because this is an unprecedented period since I became speaker. Ninety days in the midst of a pandemic and with the possibility of a snap election being called within the period but the Parliament is in recess during the period?

“I think that is most undemocratic and most unfortunate that we find ourselves in that circumstance.

“What I’m hoping to do is to cause Bahamians not to feel that the Parliament and executive is out of their reach and that they don’t have the kinda of access to Parliament particularly as a result of our COVID-19 protocols when we had to convert the gallery. So, there’s really no public participation in terms of even sitting and viewing the proceedings. So, I felt we should not go all the way to September without persons having the opportunity to voice their concerns and to at least access the parliament of The Bahamas because once they access the Speaker, I have a good relationship despite me trying to enforce certain changes with most of the members of parliament.

“When people come to me all the time from different constituencies outside of Nassau Village that I represent and I passed those concerns onto the various members.”