St Lucia Speaker: Mark’s casting vote lawful; President cannot withhold assent

Akash Sama­roo

Speak­er of the House of As­sem­bly in St Lu­cia, Claudius Fran­cis, says Sen­ate pres­i­dent Wade Mark act­ed with­in the law when he used his cast­ing vote to break a 15-15 dead­lock and se­cure pas­sage of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill, al­though he ac­knowl­edged the de­ci­sion de­part­ed from es­tab­lished par­lia­men­tary con­ven­tion.

Fran­cis weighed in on the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing last week’s Sen­ate vote, ar­gu­ing that a dis­tinc­tion must be drawn be­tween what par­lia­men­tary tra­di­tion rec­om­mends and what the rules legal­ly per­mit.