This Government is habitually breaching the constitution

Jan 11, 2009 AFC Column, Features / Columnists

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An Opinion on the debate in the National Assembly on the

‘Childcare & Protection Agency’ Bill No 26 of 2008

by AFC Vice-Chair Sheila Holder, MP

Establishment of a Child Care Protection Agency by Minister conflicts with Constitutional Provisions

If one were to look at the ‘Child Care & Protection Agency’ Bill proposed by Priya Manickchand Minister of Human Service & Social Security (MHSSS) as a standalone piece of legislation, one could hardly find fault with it. However, we in the AFC are in no position to do so since the Constitution directs otherwise via Articles 212U & V.

When you examine these articles on The ‘Rights of the Child Commission’ (RoCC), you will observe that it is this Commission that has the mandate to promote initiatives to enhance the well-being of children as well as provide oversight for their implementation – not the Minister of HSSS in spite of all her good intentions.

It is this Commission that should have had a say, and made recommendations on bill No. 26 of 2008 since the Constitution directs the format for devising childcare policy should be broad based, reflect the views of entities in the NGO sector, religious community among others, and comprise persons possessing expertise in issues affecting children.

Articles 212U & V provide for an input from the State in matters pertaining to the care and protection of children through the Ministry of Education; but it does not provide for unilateral or autocratic action on the part of the HSSS Minister. The enactment of this bill is therefore particularly distasteful, especially since the HSSS Minister is a member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee responsible for appointing members to Commissions and has not persuaded her PPPC colleagues serving on this Committee to abandon their stance of holding out against the position of the PNCR-1G.

PPPC/PNCR1G Parliamentary Impasse holding Back Establishment of ERC and Four Rights Commissions

For several years the PPPC and the PNCR have disagreed regarding the right of the Inter-religious Organisation (IRO) to be one of over 150 civil society entities determined by the National Assembly to be consulted by a consensual mechanism in order to get established the Ethnic Relations Commission and the four Rights Commissions; the latter being the Human Rights Commission, the Women & Gender Equality Commission, the Indigenous Peoples’ Commission and the Rights of the Child Commission. As a consequence these constitutional Commissions, which are mandated to promote and enhance fundamental Rights and the rule of law in Guyana, have not been established.

Government Not Upholding Tenets of Constitution

To state the obvious, the Government has a duty to uphold the tenets of our Constitution, the principal political objective of which has been laid down in Article 13 placing the duty on the State for establishing an inclusionary democracy by providing increasing opportunities for the participation of citizens, and their organisations, in the management and decision-making processes of the State. This bill failed to meet the standard for its formulation.

As an aside, it seems to me that Article 13 and its objectives have been virtually abandoned by civil society having failed to persuade successive PPPC governments to uphold its principles since enactment in 2001. From time to time I have publicly blamed the PNCR for its stand on the IRO; but the responsibility resides with the Government for establishing the ERC and the Rights Commissions as the ‘buck stops with the PPPC’.

Far more troubling to the AFC is the fact that this Government is habitually breaching the constitution. Under these circumstances, the AFC cannot be complicit with such autocratic conduct on the part of the HSSS Minister or we too would be failing in our duty to the people.

Majoritarian Form of Governance not in Accord with Article 13

It is obvious to me that this Government embraces an unenlightened majoritarian form of governance rather than the consensus model that is more in keeping with parliamentary democracy considered to be closest to “Government by the people and for the people”. This is the model that Article 13 of our Constitution directs us to embrace.

Regrettably, this is not being upheld in the way the country is being governed. The consequences of which to the Guyanese society are manifested in the inability of Government to deliver better governance, economic development, poverty reduction and accountability to the people for the decisions and actions taken in their name.

But this will soon change, I believe, because the eyes of the people are being painfully pried opened as a result of the deleterious consequences they are being made to suffer as a result of the kind of insular approach to problem solving and autocratic conduct that this bill represents.

Let me make it clear – institutionalizing an agency for the care and protection of children will always be welcomed by the AFC; but we doubt that such an agency will achieve the buy-in necessary for the institution’s successful implementation of its mandate in its current form falling as it does, outside the constitutional framework envisaged by the framers and provided for in sections (f) of Article 212V, that clearly defines the functions of the Rights of the Child Commission thus: – “To monitor, evaluate and make recommendations on policies, procedures and practices of organisations, bodies and institutions in order to promote the rights of the child”.

Minister Usurping Role of Rights of the Child Commission

In several sections of this bill the Minister is positioned as a one-woman ‘Rights of the Child Commission’ taking upon herself the functions of this Commission. In responding to my submission, Minister Priya Manickchand placed my comments out of context claiming my expectations were that the ‘Rights of the Child Commission’ should perform the functions she proposed for the Child Care and Protection agency. I did no such thing; rather I sought to highlight her usurpation of the role of the ‘Rights of the Child Commission’ and the propensity of the PPPC to behave in an exclusionary and autocratic manner.

Call for Reintroduction of Income Tax Allowances for Children

In closing, I advised Minister Manickchand that if she really wanted to make a significant and favourable impact on the welfare of children in Guyana she should persuade her Government to reintroduce income tax allowances for children to ease the burden on parents struggling to raise their children on starvation wages.

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