The Peter Nygard-Louis Bacon feud continues to play out. The Bacon-funded organization Save The Bays and the governing Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) are fighting the latest round of the proxy war between the two wealthy Lyford Cay residents.

Jerome Fitzgerald, the PLP MP for Marathon and the education minister, has tabled in the House of Assembly private correspondence from people affiliated with Save The Bays in an effort to attack the organization. Leslie Miller, the PLP MP for Tall Pines, has also read into the record of the House financial information of people connected with Save The Bays.

Bacon's brother, Zack Bacon, Fred Smith QC, a Save the Bays director, and the Coalition to Protect Clifton Bay have won an injunction against the further publication or dissemination of this private information they say was obtained and distributed without their consent.

Miller said on Monday that if Save The Bays does not desist in what he perceives as efforts to destabilize the Christie administration he would reveal more information on the organization.

In response, Smith on Tuesday threatened to seek to have any member of Parliament who continues to reveal such confidential information of the group committed to prison for contempt of court.

In The Bahamas we have three branches of government: the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. Each has powers granted by law. Our democratic framework is designed to play these branches off against each other so that power is disbursed, not giving any branch tyranny over the people. All are supposed to follow the law and to respect the separation of powers principle in which the law is grounded.

Parliamentarians have protected speech in Parliament. That means the court has no jurisdiction over what is said in Parliament. This does not mean parliamentarians can say anything, however. Both houses of Parliament have rules. They also have presiding officers who are legally empowered to ensure those rules are followed.

The speaker of the House and the president of the Senate can order members who break or abuse the rules out of the respective chambers. Both houses also have rules to punish members who break these rules.

Based on the legal protection of speech parliamentarians have in Parliament it is unclear how Smith could seek to have a parliamentarian committed to prison on contempt of court charges for what they say in the chamber. The court injunction on reproduction of the content of the Save The Bays private information cannot extend to parliamentarians speaking in Parliament.

If Smith wants to stop them from discussing the private information of his group he would have to convince the respective presiding officers of Parliament that it is an abuse of the rules of Parliament for them to do so.

The speaker of the House and the president of the Senate would then have to enforce that rule over members' speech - not the court. It is unfortunate that the Nygard-Bacon dispute has gotten to where it has. Sadly, there seems to be no end in sight. They are wealthy men. They only seem to have the instinct to fight on.

How many reputations and careers will be claimed before this ends?

Most common people couldn't tell you why they are fighting.

It will be a good day for The Bahamas when this dispute is over. It has become a distraction from other matters more fundamental to our lives and future.

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