Speaker must be firm

Sir, - It is time the Speaker asserted his authority and pulled up rioting members inside the Lok Sabha. Instead of merely standing up and feebly calling out, ``Please, Please!'', he must name the members disrupting the proceedings of the House and ask them to behave themselves or get out. If a member gets so named three times, he should be declared to have proved that he/she has no faith in the parliamentary

system of democracy and therefore disqualified forthwith to represent his/her constituency. Furthermore, he/she must be disqualified for ever from contesting elections. The principle, ``no work, no pay'' should be applied to the recalcitrant members. Their privileges of pay and allowances and air and train passes must be curtailed.

S.S. Venkataraman,

Chennai

Sir, - The stalemate that Parliament has been thrown into on the issue of corruption is symptomatic of a growing disbelief in the impartiality of the justice system. A dangerous notion seems to prevail that the entire legal edifice tends to lean in favour of the ruling party and its adherents. This explains why some Opposition members under a cloud are driven by a frenzy to wrest power somehow or the other from the ruling ensemble. Simply stated, the accused wants to exchange places with the prosecution and wield the gavel against the latter, put in the dock.

The hallmark of a true democracy is an immaculate judiciary commanding the implicit faith of the general populace. The solution to the present stalemate is that the ruling party must be above suspicion and the Opposition must be willing to bide its time, observing democratic norms.

N. Thanu,

Palayamkottai, T.N.

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