5.0 Oral Evidence Received From MDC-Alliance -Hon Senators
5.1 The allegations against MDC-Alliance Hon. Senators were that they remained seated or walked out of the Senate Chamber when His Excellency delivered the State of the Nation Addresses of 18 September, 2018 and 1 October, 2019. The Committee invited Hon. Members to rebut the allegations. An assortment of defences were received from the Hon. Senators, including—
(a) that during the Official Opening of the First Session of the Ninth Parliament in 2018, some were still new and operated on instruction from senior Members from their party, thus they were ignorant of Parliamentary Proceedings;
(b) that the allegations levelled against them had already been addressed through the docking of their sitting allowances by the Hon. Speaker;
(c) that they were threatened by their party that failure to comply with party instructions would result in Members being recalled;
(d) that it was not stated in the Standing Orders that they have to stand up whenever the President comes to Parliament;
(e) that walking out whenever the President was addressing Parliament did not constitute contempt of Parliament arguing that no international best practices could be found to support that. They stated that the Standing Rules and Orders had since been amended to make it contemptuous to walk out on the President, meaning the offence, was not an offence when it was committed;
(f) that they had not been provided with adequate information to enable them to respond to the allegations; and
(g) that it was not clear who had walked out because according to their understanding the Senate had adjourned; and that there was no basis for them to be held in contempt of Parliament or to be said to have been disrespectful to His Excellency when technically in their view they were not even supposed to be in Parliament.
5.2 The Committee received further evidence from other Hon Senators who were openly hostile to the Committee. Cases in point include the likes of Hon. Sen. Shoko and Hon. Sen. Sinampande, among others. They denied ever disrespecting His Excellency, yet it was common knowledge, supported by evidence submitted by them that they were whipped to walk out from the Chamber by their Party Leadership.
5.3 The Sergeant-at-Arms testified that Senate business was not adjourned but suspended awaiting the State of the Nation Addresses on both occasions.
Continued next page
(152 VIEWS)
