NOT WITHIN OUR TRADITION

Apr 07, 2010 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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The Alliance For Change (AFC) at a recent sitting of the National Assembly moved to have the tabling of a Bill it had prepared deferred, since the government was not ready to proceed.
If the AFC is hoping that the opportunity will come when it can pilot that Bill it should think again. That is not going to happen under the PPP administration. The government does not recognize the right of opposition parties to introduce legislation in parliament and is not going to lean in this direction.
The AFC therefore ought to forget about its proposed Bill being tabled. The government is never going to be ready to proceed and will most likely introduce its own version of that Bill, leaving the AFC’s hard work to gather cobweb.
The AFC should forget about introducing Bills in the National Assembly. The convention under the Westminster system has always been that it is the ruling party that introduces Bills in the House. While it is not forbidden for private Bills to be brought before the House, the tradition to which Guyana has been attached is that it is the business of government to decide on the legislative business of the National Assembly. It is not the tradition in our country for opposition parties to introduce Bills.
The AFC is obviously fascinated by the American congressional system which allows members of either of the main political parties to introduce Bills. But that has not been our tradition and the reform process that was introduced years ago did not go outside of the established convention.
Guyana is not America. And despite having an Executive President we do not have the same system as America. In fact, even critics of the government would be forced to admit that essentially what we have in Guyana is still a Westminster system crowned by an Executive Presidency. Our political system is still based on the British model which recognizes parliament as the primary legislative arm. Under this system it is the primary duty of government to bring Bills before the House for debate and contestation.
The opposition may feel that it would do no harm for the opposition parties to also introduce Bills in the House. But this would be against the general grain of the Westminster system which sees this as the government’s prerogative. It is the government and not the ruling party that introduces Bills. As mentioned, however, there is some accommodation under the Westminster system for members to introduce motions and even Bills, but this is never in relation to major pieces of legislation, which remains always the prerogative of the government.
For any government to allow major pieces of legislation to be introduced by the opposition strikes at the very heart of our parliamentary tradition and undermines the credibility of the system under which the majority rules, but under the scrutiny and oversight of the opposition parties.
Imagine what would happen if there was a free-for-all and the opposition had the right to table legislation. They would bombard the legislature with so many pieces of legislation that the ruling party and government would end up spending more time defusing such Bills than it would pursuing its own legislative agenda.
The American system simply cannot be transposed to our legislature because the American legislature which is called Congress is built on a different premise from that which prevails under the Westminster system. The American congress emerged out of a long process of ensuring that that country stayed united and allowed for a greater say for the representatives of the various States.
The Westminster system on the other hand has retained the importance of elections between political parties and allows the political parties to choose their representatives to the National Assembly.
A fundamental element of that system is ministerial responsibility which allows for ministers to be held accountable to the National Assembly for their respective portfolios. Now this system of ministerial responsibility is going to be turned inside out and upside down if an opposition member is going to be allowed to dictate government policy through the passage of legislation which the government may have had no part in developing even if it assents to the legislation.
Over the years, Westminster has attracted a great deal of criticism in Guyana. In fact, whenever there is a need to change the constitution or tamper with our electoral or political systems, the blame is always placed on our Westminster model, never mind when Burnham piloted the new constitution in 1980, he said it was in response to unsuitability of that system to our reality.
In the end the 1980 constitution retained the essential features of the Westminster system. And this is what is being revolted against by those arguing for power sharing. Burnham’s handiwork is being put on trial, despite the irony being that he had argued that Guyana needed to move away from this system, yet he ended up entrenching the very system that he saw as irrelevant.
Despite all the bad mouthing that it has received, the Westminster system remains the most workable system known to those countries that have emerged from colonialism. So why change what has worked? It is not as if we are building a socialist society and need to dismantle the vestiges of bourgeoisie rule? The AFC certainly is not interested in any such agenda.

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