The House of Representatives wants intimidation and threats to become formal reasons for the President of the House to deprive a Member of Parliament of the floor or to expel a debate. Today the House debated its own manners.
Chamber chairman Bergkamp already wrote a letter about that in February note about after talks with all political groups, except the PVV. That party was also not present at the debate. In general, most parties believe that the President of the House should be allowed to intervene a little more often, although freedom of expression should not be endangered.
Bergkamp agrees. “Free speech has nothing to do with insulting people,” she said. “It is precisely the insulting of people or those social media videos of parties about certain MPs that stifle free speech. MPs sometimes indicate to me that they no longer dare to say certain things.”
Swear words
Bergkamp said it is not her intention to compile a list of banned words. “It will always depend on the situation and the context,” she said. But she doesn’t want words like “idiot” or “crazy” to be used against a person, or any other insulting or swearing words.
In response to the suggestions of the Van der Staaij committee, most of the groups also wanted to make agreements about the working method. This means, for example, spending more time on careful legislation instead of fussing, and submitting fewer motions.
Several parties again criticized the way in which MPs from the Forum for Democracy sometimes conduct the debate. FvD MP Van Meijeren said that his party is rarely present at debates because they are “plays”. The mutual accusations did not lead to new insights.
War
Several parties found the moment of the debate unfortunate, given the war in Ukraine. “It is wry and uncomfortable that we are talking about our manners, while elsewhere democracy is literally being fought for,” said D66 MP Paternotte. SP MP Leijten called it embarrassing.
The debate was requested by BBB when there was no war yet, and has been moved up several times in the parliamentary agenda. MP Van der Plas thought it was time for the manners to be discussed in public.
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