Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Mar 11, 2019 Letters
DEAR EDITOR,
I use to read Mr. Ralph Ramkarran column, Conversation Tree, in Stabroek News without question because in the vein of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, ‘For Ramkarran is an honourable man’.
In his recent column, “Dim political fortunes await Guyana” (March 10, 2019), the now leader of the political party ‘A New and United Guyana’ (ANUG) states among, other things, “CARICOM may be forced to take a stand against an unlawful Government having failed to do so between the 1970s and 1980s against the PNC and then eagerly doing so against a then lawful Janet Jagan Government in 1999.”
On a cursory read of Ramkarran’s statement it might appear innocuous. His Trumpian assault on CARICOM might even be forgiven as we would the US President’s diatribes on NATO.
But the statement’s deficit of facts, especially that last bit “lawful Janet Jagan Government in 1999”, in this era’s fake news proliferation it has dire implications for the masses from someone who recently launched his party’s bid for public office.
What Mr. Ramkarran omitted to state is that he was the lead counsel when the validity of the Janet Jagan presidency and administration was litigated in the Elections Petition/Ester Perreira Casa. A case he lost.
In January 2001, Chief Justice Claudette Singh voided the 1997 General and Regional Elections hence the Janet Jagan became illegal and thus unconstitutional. By this time Mrs. Jagan had resigned for health reasons and Bharrat Jagdeo was President.
However, Chief Justice Singh begin the delivery of her ruling by stating explicitly, “I have no jurisdiction to order the President or the government to demit office.”
Mr. Ramkarran had presented a proposal for the court to rule that:
“(1) All acts and things done by the National Assembly, the Court and all state agencies, bodies and institutions from December 15, 1997 are valid, lawful and binding.
(2) The National Assembly, the Government, and all state agencies, bodies and institutions shall remain in existence and shall continue functioning until the president is sworn in and are valid, lawful and binding.
(3) And all acts and things done by the above until the president is sworn in are valid, lawful and binding.”
What is even more grave is that Mr. Ramkarran also fails to state that even with the greatest constitutional crisis in our nation’s history thus created by Singh’s vitiating of 1997 Election and thus the Janet Jagan’s government, in the Chief Justice’s definitive ruling she advised:
‘because of the consequence of the invalidity on the executive, parliament and all laws passed since 1997, in an act of necessity, to uphold the rule of law and to avoid a constitutional vacuum, the government is to remain in office and the National Assembly is still in session but with some noted restrictions until elections were held.’
To their credit amid their “dim political fortunes” at the time the PPP/C still managed to pull off three electoral successes in the polls on 2001, 2007 and 2015 and I have absolutely no doubt the APNU+AFC Government will likewise be victorious again when elections are called.
Sherod Avery Duncan
Citizen
Where is the BETTER MANAGEMENT/RENEGOTIATION OF THE OIL CONTRACTS you promised Jagdeo?
Apr 19, 2024
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