A Goebbels culture held aloft by the opposition

May 18, 2008 Letters

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Dear Editor,
The fascist Minister of Propaganda in Hitlerite Germany, Herr Goebbels, is on record as having said that a lie is more believed when it is a big lie. He is further reported to have said that the more often a lie is repeated the more it tends to be believed.

This seems to be the tactics of the political opposition in dealing with the PPP and the PPP/Civic Government. Another glaring example appeared in the Kaieteur News of April 27 in an article by Khemraj Ramjattan of the AFC.

In that article, he once again implied that our constitution was the “Burnham Constitution,” meaning that it was the product of the Forbes Burnham regime. He has made such statements regularly, sometimes even in Parliament.

This, however, is not true.

When the PPP/Civic took office in 1992, efforts were made to have a new constitution. A commission of the Parliament was established to carry out the task. A lot of work was done, but the commission did not conclude its work before the Parliament ended in 1997.

The delay was due mainly to the fact that the PNC had refused to participate in the work of that body for a protracted period. The PPP/Civic Government displayed great patience in working to get the main opposition on board to deal with such a fundamental issue.

Even though the De Santos (Bernard De Santos was the then Attorney General and chaired the commission) Commission did not complete its work before the 1997 elections, the effort did not go in vain. It was used by the commission established by the new Parliament, based on the Herdmanston Accord.
The new commission had very broad representation from political parties and from civil society. The Commission travelled extensively throughout Guyana, taking evidence from organisations and individuals. It also drew on international experiences. Several constitutional experts from abroad, facilitated by the National Development Institute (NDI) of the US, came to Guyana during this period to advise the Commission.

The cost of this work was also very substantial. Based on all the above work a new constitution was drafted. It was laid in Parliament and was passed unanimously. Mr. Ramjattan was a Member of Parliament and also voted for this constitution.

After all of this, I find it baffling that anyone can continue to describe the constitution as “Burnham’s Constitution.” This constitution is truly a people’s constitution. Clearly, the only motive was to repeat the lie often enough in the hope that people would believe it. It is designed to discredit the PPP, which was the main force fighting for democracy and change in Guyana during the period of rigged elections.
Whenever the opposition wants to attack the President, they refer to the immunity that the constitution gives to the head of state.

Mr Ramjattan in particular tries to create the impression that all the immunities that were enjoyed by Presidents Burnham and Hoyte are still applicable today. The impression is also often given that, when in opposition, the PPP opposed the immunities of the PNC’s presidents, but now we are enjoying the same.
This is also untrue.

From the time that the 1980 Constitution was promulgated, the PPP expressed the view that the power of the President to prorogue or dissolve Parliament, even if he was being impeached, was improper and in effect made it impossible to impeach the President, even if the President grossly violated the constitution.
Other opposition forces expressed similar views at that time. Some said that this clause was creating a president for life. The WPA was the main proponent of this position.

The PPP promised to remove that power from the President whenever it took office.

The record would show that, on both occasions when the PPP made presentations to the Constitutional Reform Commissions, it recommended the removal of such powers. The resulting Constitution does not have that provision!

Moreover, many other powers that the President had have now been changed or modified. Before 2001 a President of Guyana could have appointed the chairpersons of all the Constitutional Commissions, including Police, Public, Judicial and Teaching Service Commissions by just consulting the Opposition.
Today, the Appointive Committee of Parliament makes recommendations to the Parliament. When these are approved, they are forwarded to the President for ratification.

In some areas, the President must obtain the agreement of the Leader of the Opposition before he can appoint persons to certain key positions.

Despite all of these changes, we have the opposition shamelessly describing our constitution as a Burnham Constitution. Again, they are working to mislead our people by repeating the lie, Goebbels-like, over and over again.

Let us now deal with the immunities that the President has and ask ourselves are they unreasonable?
To determine this, we should look at the immunities that heads of state have in the countries that are often upheld as bastions of democracy.

Any such examination will show that the immunities of the President of Guyana are generally the same as, or less than, those enjoyed by other heads of states.

Let us begin by looking at the United Kingdom, the country that is described as the oldest democracy. The head of state is the ruling monarch. The head of state here is exempt from the jurisdiction of the criminal courts. The monarch is personally immune from civil lawsuits as well.

In the US, according to a study done by the Legislative Council Secretariat, Research and Library Services Division, done in 2007, while there are no legal provisions of immunity for the President, “…the courts have developed a doctrine of official immunity for the President. The President is entitled to absolute immunity in civil suits regarding all of his official acts…”

The study went on to say in regard to the President’s immunity from criminal proceedings the matter is unsettled. “…However, no sitting President has been prosecuted for criminal charges…”

In France, the President has great immunities and power. It was only in 2007 that a law was passed to make it possible to impeach the President. He or she cannot be prosecuted. The study found that the French President has more powers and immunities than all others in Europe.

In Germany, the President enjoys immunity from prosecution. He/she has the power to appoint and dismiss federal judges, the federal civil servants, the officers and non-commissioned officers etc.
In India, the President also has immunity from prosecution from both criminal and civil courts.
We can therefore conclude from the examples above that it has been internationally recognized that the immunities for a head of state are considered not as a privilege, but as an essential tool for carrying out the functions of such a high office.
In relation to Guyana, in a general sense, the immunity of the President, as given to the post by the framers of our constitution, is no more than, and in some instances less than, those bestowed on other heads of state.
To say that a President of Guyana has excessive power is at best unobjective, and more often than not it is downright political dishonesty with the hope of misleading people.
Such behaviour is in the culture of Goebbels, repeating the lie to make it believable.
Donald Ramotar

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