Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Oct 10, 2012 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
This columnist has seen a letter by the Speaker of the National Assembly in which he stated that he has no legal authority to prevent the cordons that the police put up around the perimeters of Parliament (when the Assembly is in session) thus denying the public access to six streets. This is despite an approved parliamentary motion that demands an end to the practice.
This columnist has also seen a reply to the Speaker by the Police Commissioner (ag) in which he has rejected the Speaker’s request to stop the blockade. There are four questions to be asked. Is the Speaker right when he says he has no legal jurisdiction to prevent the blockade? Why should one think that he is wrong when as a lawyer, he must have consulted his legal texts?
Secondly, on whose authority is the Police Commissioner continuing the policy? If he chose to proceed with the blockade on his own, does he have the power to ignore a motion of Parliament? Thirdly, if he is given an order by an agency of the Executive (in this case the Home Affairs Ministry), can a Minister just dismiss an approved motion of Parliament without consequences?
Now the fourth question. Does Parliament in the Guyana Constitution have powers that are independent of the Executive?
There is an easy answer to this curiosity in relation to other countries. The answer is yes. We have just seen a miraculous electoral victory of the opposition in Georgia that will create serious problems for the executive president. In the US, a president without congressional majority always faces budget nightmares.
The rejection by the Executive of the parliamentary motion that demands the end of the cordons will be one of the biggest challenges for the opposition in recent times. What is at stake here is the very viability of both APNU and the AFC. There is this feeling among the population—and it is increasing with each passing day—- that the electoral victory of the opposition has not changed in even small ways, the way the PPP Government has exercised power. This frustration has to be understood within the context of the great expectation.
After the results of the November 2011 general elections, the nation became burdened with angst to know that unlike the rest of the world, parties could not have formed a coalition. But the great expectation was that Parliament, now in the hands of the AFC and APNU, would use constitutional power to decrease the monopolization of power by the Executive. This was not to be.
A critic like Christopher Ram has argued in the letter pages of the print media that even Parliament’s reduction of certain expenditures in the budget has been ignored by the Executive. Then there is the declaration by the President that he will not assent to Bills unless the Executive was involved in the shape of final contents.
Now there will be the impasse on the motion. How can the opposition, which has a majority in the country’s parliament, approve a motion that it is contemptuously ignored by the Government and not lose its credibility in the eyes of the citizenry?
The disadvantage facing APNU and the AFC should they accept the continuation of the cordons is that they have a majority in Parliament therefore they are bound to endure scorn from the population if they appear to be weak in the Parliament that they control. The trouble for APNU and the AFC is that if they allow the cordons to remain then how can they approve of any other motion?
A society will disrespect any opposition if it takes precious time of the National Assembly to debate motions that ought to be recognized, but are disdainfully tossed aside by the Executive. The moment that the country is waiting for has arrived. What will the opposition do if the police put up the blockades when the 10th Parliament reconvenes? Will it re-enter Parliament as if nothing has happened? Will it decide that enough is enough and boycott Parliament? Will it resort to other avenues of protest and confrontation?
Whatever it does, there can be no doubt that it is facing a credibility test. If it adopts the course of action of going into Parliament with the blockade still around the streets, then it will give the Executive an enormous victory. And both the AFC and APNU know that the PPP will use that weakness to take more latitude.
Desmond Hoyte is dead and gone, but he did say that there is only one type of language the PPP understands.
Please share this to every Guyanese including your house cats.
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