Noel Treacy (Galway East, Fianna Fail)

I welcome this opportunity to address Members on the case of Mr. Roy Bennett, the MDC Member of Parliament for Chimanimani in the Zimbabwean Parliament. Our Government has been closely following this case and shares many of the concerns expressed on the manner in which Mr. Bennett has been treated and the handling of the matter by the Zimbabwean Parliament. There is no doubt that some of the procedures employed in the establishment of the committee of privileges of the Zimbabwean Parliament, which heard Mr. Bennett's case and which subsequently sentenced him to 12 months imprisonment with labour, are open to question. Following the incident in the Zimbabwean Parliament on 18 May 2004, where Mr. Bennett shoved the Zimbabwean Minister for Justice to the floor, it is difficult to conclude in any objective way that he received a fair hearing. The same situation prevailed in our Parliament back in the 1920s. Parliament was suspended for a week and the rules of conduct were written. In 1981, there was another incident which had a genealogical connection with the previous incident and the rules were amended and tightened up. Therefore there are historic connotations, but not of the same gravity as the situation in Zimbabwe.

While I do not wish to condone these actions, which resulted in Mr. Bennett's imprisonment, it is clear that the sentence imposed was politically motivated and wholly disproportionate to the offence committed. I understand there is no precedent for the Zimbabwean Parliament to sentence one of its members to imprisonment in this way, even though similar events have occurred in that legislature in the past. Indeed, the severity of the sentence is unprecedented internationally. As a Member of this Parliament for 23 years, I cannot understand how any parliament or any of its committees would have the power to imprison anyone.