THE first recommendation by the Parliamentary Privileges Committee to have Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama and Opposition MP Pio Tikoduadua apologise to Parliament about what transpired on August 9 “seems to be what everybody wants”.
Defence Minister and committee member Inia Seruiratu made the comments while the committee deliberated on their recommendations, the committee’s verbatim report dated September 5 revealed.
He highlighted this after Agriculture Minister and committee member Dr Mahendra Reddy told the committee that they had analysed the facts, further suggesting that the recommendation was the best they could make.
“This is the best recommendation we could make and I suggest that let the legal team read this and if they think that given the case laws in front of them that we might have to change, then we will do that,” Dr Reddy said.
In response, Mr Seruiratu said recommendation (a) about the two leaders issuing an apology was what a lot of people would want.
“The honourable leader of SODELPA has tried that, the honourable Speaker has tried, the honourable Prime Minister is willing to do that, that carries a lot of weight and I think that is the expectation too from a lot of members of Parliament and including the leaders themselves, but unless something else in the mind of some people, but that is just all that I wanted to say but of course, I agree that we will be guided by the legal advisers on (b),” Mr Seruiratu said.
The second recommendation by the committee was if the two MPs failed to apologise to Parliament, they would face six months suspension effective immediately on September 6.
The PM allegedly manhandled Mr Tikoduadua outside Parliament on August. Before that, the PM had claimed he was personally attacked by Mr Tikoduadua.
