2012 budget cuts......AG gets 5 days to file statement of claim

2012 budget cuts……AG gets 5 days to file statement of claim

May 09, 2013 News

Attorney General (AG) Anil Nandlall will file a statement of claim within five days to show the wrong committed by the Opposition when they made cuts to the 2012 budget. The AG was ordered to do so by Chief Justice Ian Chang when the matter of the Government versus A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Speaker of the National Assembly was called at the High Court yesterday.
Representing the Speaker, Raphael Trotman, the first named defendant, are Attorneys at law

Attorney General Anil Nandall

Khemraj Ramjattan and Christopher Ram; for the second-named defendant, APNU, Deborah Barker and Basil Williams were in appearance. The AG is for the complainant- the Government and Senior Counsel Ashton Chase is appearing for the Minister of Finance Dr Ashni Singh.
After a short period of back and forth between the two parties on a previously filed issue, it was highlighted that the AG had not filed the statement of claim which would thus lead to a statement of defence from the defendants.
Lawyers for the defendants thus agreed that within 14 days they would file a statement of defence. The AG also expressed that within three days he would be ready with a statement of reply. The parties will return to court on June 11 when the AG will begin with his claim.
The 2012 budget cuts came to the attention of the courts after the Administration sought legal intervention to replenish the $21B cut from last year’s $191B budget.
The AFC and APNU had used their one-seat advantage to slash the Government’s allocation for the country’s agencies, stating either that there was no need for the funds or that there was no result despite the revenue being injected in certain agencies.
Agencies affected were the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC), Government Information Agency (GINA), National Communications Network (NCN), the Low Carbon Development Strategy and the Guyana Power and Light (GPL).
The AG had said that it is the government’s view that the National Assembly, like every other creature of the Constitution, must act and function in the manner provided for and contemplated by the Constitution and opined that this was not done.
He had stated, “It is also quite unfortunate that the Honourable Speaker, an attorney-at-law, has seen it fit to conclude that the very decisions of the National Assembly which are the subject of the legal challenge are “legitimate” and that the challenge itself is “unconstitutional”, when these are the very issues that are before the Court for the Court’s determination.
By so doing, the AG said that the Speaker violated certain trite and axiomatic legal principles.