House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh dis­missed con­cerns about gov­ern­ment ac­count­abil­i­ty in Par­lia­ment to­day as a “tired old sto­ry” while de­fend­ing Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der's re­fusal to an­swer ques­tions tied to the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency and al­leged threats against se­nior law en­force­ment of­fi­cers.

The clash erupt­ed af­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les chal­lenged the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to in­voke Stand­ing Or­der 28(3), which al­lows a min­is­ter to de­cline to an­swer a par­lia­men­tary ques­tion if, “in his opin­ion the pub­li­ca­tion of the an­swer would be con­trary to the pub­lic in­ter­est.”

The same pro­vi­sion al­so ap­pears un­der Stand­ing Or­der 27 gov­ern­ing ur­gent ques­tions.