Latest update May 20th, 2024 12:59 AM
Nov 07, 2016 Letters
Dear Editor;
Ours is a constitutional democracy constructed upon the foundation of the doctrine of separation of powers. As Justice Saunders posits in Benjamin v Minister of Information (1997: “… our democracy rests on three fundamental pillars, the Legislative, Executive and the Judicial. All must keep within the bounds of the Constitution. The Judiciary has the task of seeing to it that the Legislative’s and Executive’s action does not stray outside of those boundaries onto forbidden territory. If that occurs and a citizen with standing complains, the court declares the trespass and grants appropriate remedies… For our democracy to operate effectively, it has been said that it is necessary that a certain comity should exist between the three branches. Each should respect the role and function of the other. The executive should respect and obey the decisions and accept the intimations of the court. If this comity does not exist, then the wheels of democracy would not turn smoothly a jarring and dangerous note will resonate from them.”(unquote)
The principles adumbrated by Justice Sanders equally apply to relationships between the Executive and independent constitutional agencies. Over the last seventeen months, this Government has been pursuing an institutionalized policy of undermining, emasculating, interfering with and assaulting these important independent constitutional agencies whose critical functional responsibility is to oversight the Executive to ensure that the Executive acts within its powers and does not exceed and abuse its authority. Like every authoritarian regime, this Government perceives such scrutiny to be intolerable. As a result, a constant and incessant battle is being waged against these constitutional agencies either to embarrass, sideline or emasculate them.
We have witnessed the hasty and precipitous actions of the Government to remove Mr. Carvil Duncan as Chairman of the Public Service Commission, a member of the Police Service Commission and a member of the Judicial Service Commission. The reason is clear. The Government obviously believes that they cannot manipulate and control Mr. Duncan. We saw the verbal onslaught to which the Auditor General was subjected to by the Minister of Finance. All that the Auditor General was guilty of was discharging his constitutional mandate of highlighting the abuse by the Minister of the constitution and fiscal laws.
We recently heard of the Government’s intention to by-pass the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and to hire and, possibly, import, prosecutors to prosecute certain criminal cases, although the constitution vests the DPP with the exclusive responsibility to do so. Again, the reason for the Government’s intended action is obvious.
They need prosecutors whom they can direct, manipulate and control. They cannot do so in respect of an independent DPP Office. We already know that SOCU and SARA, staffed with political appointees and politicians, are masquerading as law enforcement agencies and are directed to investigate persons identified by the Administration, including, leading members of the Opposition.
The Guyana Police Force, which has had the exclusive statutory mandate to detect, investigate and prevent crime for the past 150 years, is being excluded. In their policy of interference and attack, even the Judiciary has not gone untouched. The Attorney General has engaged the Judicial Service Commission in a public confrontation in relation to the latter’s appointment of the Deputy Registrar of Deeds, a responsibility which the constitution clearly vests with the Judicial Service Commission.
The matter is now the subject of legal proceedings. Only recently, the Attorney General launched a most disrespectful public tirade against the Chancellor of the Judiciary, describing him as a “dictator” in the judicial system.
The aforementioned examples are by no means exhaustive. But they vividly demonstrate that the “comity” which Justice Saunders opined should exist among these poles of constitutional power, is absent, largely because of the contempt with which these agencies are treated by the Executive. As a result what now obtains is precisely what Justice Saunders warned against: “If this comity does not exist, then the wheels of democracy would not turn smoothly a jarring and dangerous note will resonate from them.” As a consequence, the sloth which has affected the Judiciary for decades has gotten progressively worse under this Administration.
Anil Nandlall
Editor’s note; this letter will conclude in our edition tomorrow
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