APNU+AFC broke record for most constitutional breaches in Caribbean

Sep 20, 2020 News

– AG Nandlall

By Shikema Dey

If one is to examine the style of governance adapted by the previous A Partnership For National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) Coalition regime, one would discover that they hold trophy for being the only government in the English-speaking Caribbean who has shown such blatant disregard for and trampled upon Guyana’s Constitution.

Attorney General and Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall

It was Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall who, on Friday, painted this picture to the National Assembly at the 2020 Emergency Budget Debates. It is being held at the Arthur Chung Conference Center.
APNU+AFC’s journey down the “unconstitutional” road commenced, according to Nandlall, mere days after they took office back in 2015.
To the National Assembly, Nandlall presented a long list of Constitutional transgressions he claimed the Coalition placed their stamp on.
Starting off, the AG highlighted that on May 28, 2020, then Minister Simona Broomes acting on instructions from then President David Granger, wrote a letter to the Public Service Commission (PSC) to cease all promotions.
According to Nandlall, that letter was quashed by the late Chief Justice (ag) Ian Chang after finding it was “unconstitutional and unlawful”, violating Article 226 of the Constitution.

Former President, David Granger

“That is how the abuse of the Constitution begun and it never stopped until they left office in August 2020,” the AG told the National Assembly.
Referring to their actions on the “runaway train”, he said APNU+AFC smashed into the Constitution and attempted to “wreck” the rule of law.
Breaches
The AG said that the Ministry of Housing under the Coalition’s grip seized people’s transported and titled core homes. The Court, he added, later ruled that they had violated citizens’ constitutional right to property.
He also pointed to President Granger’s action where he revoked leases from Region 5 rice farmers.
Again, the court ruled that the then President violated the Constitution. Acting on Granger’s instructions, Nandlall reminded that then State Minister Joseph Harmon wrote a letter to Police Service Commission to halt promotions but the court later ruled that the Constitution was violated.
Nandlall said: “President Granger attempted to seize Red House from the Cheddi Jagan Research Center and revoked a 99-year Lease. The Court ruled that he violated the Constitution. The President refused to constitute the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) after it expired in 2017, again violating the Constitution. The President summoned the Chairman of the Public Service Commission and requested that he resign, again violating the Constitution.”
Added to this, Nandlall said then Attorney General, Basil Williams threatened a sitting Judge during a hearing in the High Court, showing a blatant disregard of the Constitution.
Another flagrant attempt by the previous administration in the violation of the Constitution was President Granger’s act of unilaterally appointing Justice(ret’d) James Patterson as the Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM).
“When the Government was defeated by a no-confidence motion in December 2018, they violated the Constitution by the Cabinet refusing to resign and by refusing to hold an election within three months. In fact, they refused to recognize the validity of the no-confidence motion.”
That case, he said, “embarrassed Guyanese on a global scale” as the Coalition tried to argue that that 33 is not a majority of 65.
But the Coalition did not stop there, he said.
Nandlall highlighted that they attempted to remove “tens of thousands” of registered electors in the House-to-House registration case.
Again, the Judiciary was forced to rule that they acted in violation of the Constitution, he said.
The biggest Constitutional transgression of them all, according to Nandlall was 2020 General and Regional Elections.
“An election,” he noted “that they first claimed that they won, but which they subsequently tried to rig and after that failed, they spent the next five months trying to denigrate and render those elections incredible and fraudulent.”
The AG highlighted that during this period, the entire world witnessed an a mixture of “manifest vulgarity, a series of nonsensical litigation, vitriolic abuse of the diplomatic, regional and international community, non-stop comical propaganda, and a mountain of the most asinine political argumentations.”
What that period did, he said, ended the political careers of many but “it should have ended the careers of all involved.”
Nandlall stressed: “Unfortunately, vestiges remain with us and now want to lecture the Guyanese people about democracy and the rule of law – the sheer audacity!”