Jamaican Member of Parliament for East Rural St. Andrew, Juliet Holness has been elected Speaker of the House of Representatives.
The Speaker’s job is to see that other members keep within the rules of the House, that the rights of the Opposition members are protected, and that every member gets a fair hearing during Parliamentary sittings.
Holness, who formerly served as Deputy Speaker, was elected to the post without opposition on Sept. 26. She was the sole nominee.
As the wife of Prime Minister Andrew Holness, she is the first prime minister’s spouse to hold the position. She is also the second woman from the Jamaica Labour Party to hold the post.
The Member of Parliament for St. James Central, Heroy Clarke, was elected the Deputy Speaker.
Holness replaces Dalrymple-Philibert
The elections became necessary upon the resignation of Marisa Dalrymple-Philibert last week.
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Dalrymple-Philibert tendered her resignation from the post and as a member of Parliament for Trelawny Southern following charges filed by the Integrity Commission in relation to her statutory declarations for seven years.
A report from the commission revealed it had opened an investigation in relation to a motor vehicle that Dalrymple-Philibert had purchased through a government concession, but that which she failed to declare in her statutory declarations filings to the Integrity Commission.
The House Speaker was later slapped with four counts of breaching Section 15(1)(b) of the Parliament (Integrity of Members) Act, 1973 for making a false statement in a statutory declaration covering the period 2015 to 2017, and an additional four counts of breaches in relation to Section 43(2)(a) of the Integrity Commission Act, 2017 for making a false statement in a statutory declaration covering the period 2018 to 2020.
Dalrymple-Philibert said she “did not knowingly misrepresent the position to the Integrity Commission; it was a genuine oversight.”
