Latest update March 28th, 2024 12:59 AM
Mar 03, 2013 APNU Column, Features / Columnists
Speaker of the National Assembly Raphael Trotman, with each succeeding sitting, contrives to astound the nation even more. His most recent ‘Ruling’– issued not in the customary manner from the Speaker’s chair but released unexpectedly to the media and to MPs by e-mail– took some by surprise.
The Speaker’s unusual mode of correspondence was matched only by the unusual content of his ‘Ruling’ in which he indicated his intention to recognise Clement Rohee’s right to speak both as a Member of the National Assembly and as a Minister of Home Affairs.
The Speaker’s 6,500-word rambling ‘Ruling’ threatens to demolish the edifice built by seven months of serious debate. Opposition members, during long days and nights, strove to safeguard the principle of the authority of the legislative branch under the Constitution and sought to reaffirm the convention of accountability of members of the executive branch to the National Assembly.
The ‘Ruling,’ if allowed to stand, could dislodge the main means which enables the National Assembly to sanction members of the executive. President Donald Ramotar ominously promised on 13th June 2012 “…not [to] assent to any bill that ‘they’ [the Opposition] carry unless it is with the full agreement of the Executive and the full involvement of the Executive.”
The ‘Ruling,’ therefore, could perversely persuade the president’s men to persist in performing their duties as they please – just as they have been doing over the past two decades – without fear of parliamentary sanction. Nandlall has already boasted that the National Assembly had “no jurisdiction or authority” under the Constitution to impose any form of sanction against such non-performance of an executive function.
Trotman’s troubles started with a successful Opposition motion of no-confidence against Minister Rohee in July 2012. That motion was founded on the ground that the Minister failed to manage the public security sector competently. The Opposition, on the strength of that motion, subsequently sought to have Rohee prevented from speaking on public security matters in the House.
The Speaker, thereafter, became the subject of relentless stress from the People’s Progressive Party Civic spokesmen. President Donald Ramotar told the 16th Triennial Congress of the Women’s Progressive Organisation in November 2012 – to loud applause from the audience – “I say very clearly that we have ‘no confidence’ in the Speaker because he took a political decision and not a legal position.”
Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr. Roger Luncheon added to Trotman’s agony by describing the latter’s earlier ‘Ruling’ to silence Rohee as “gross.”Minister of Legal Affairs and Attorney General Anil Nandlall described Trotman’s earlier ‘Ruling’ as “…a travesty.”
Nandlall, relishing the recent February ‘Ruling’, patronisingly praised Trotman saying, “…notwithstanding the fact that six months had elapsed “during which time he bobbed and he weaved, he flipped and he flopped, he eventually made the right decision.”
It must have been in a fit of frustration that the Speaker cried out that he would “offer to resign” should any side in the House find that he was not properly performing his duties. That finding seems imminent. His dilemma can be likened to a Zugzwang – a German word used especially in the game of Chess to refer to a situation in which a player is compelled to move when it is his turn even though this move must be disadvantageous. Trotman knew that it was his turn to end the Rohee crisis, but he made the wrong move.
Trotman, from as early as November 2012, began to display symptoms of discomfort with the direction that the Opposition debate had taken. He ruled – after almost five hours of fierce arguments between the Government and Opposition sides – that a new motion brought by Granger to prevent Rohee from addressing the National Assembly on public security matters would be sent to the Committee of Privileges for consideration. He ruled initially, also, that Rohee would be prevented from presenting or debating any legislation in the House in his name.
The Speaker, obviously oblivious to the implications of his farrago of ‘Rulings’ for the authority for the National Assembly, decided to allow Rohee to speak in the National Assembly on the Citizens’ Security Programme in February 2013. Shortly afterwards, he issued his ‘Ruling’ thinking that it was “…constitutionally just and right.”
The Speaker’s role is not to sit as the supreme judge of constitutional matters. His ‘Rulings’ should deal with the procedural acceptability of matters brought before the House. His fateful decision has threatened to thwart the Opposition’s efforts to use the National Assembly to demand a new approach to governance and public security in Guyana.
The Speaker is not infallible or omnipotent, however. The case is not closed. Clerk of the National Assembly Sherlock Isaacs has confirmed that the Speaker’s ‘Ruling’ can be challenged through a ‘substantive motion’. The Opposition must challenge it in order to protect our parliamentary democracy.
THIS IDIOT TELLING GUYANA WE HAVE NO SAY IN THE 50% PROFIT SHARING AGREEMENT WE HAVE WITH EXXON.
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