Appeals to gag Rohee raises spectre of plans for Guyana

Jan 25, 2013 Letters

---

Dear Editor,
Seemingly offended, he rips the Guyana constitution for its inadequacies.  Yet unaware of his reliance on judicial empowerment through the same constitution so that “the courts have to start the constitutional reconstruction process” all over Mr. M Maxwell writes in the KN of 21-1-13, that “I read the Chief Justice’s ruling and while I am no attorney, I found the analysis and reasoning questionable and out of touch with the reality that obtains in Guyana.”
His displeasure registered, Mr. Maxwell then dismisses and diminishes the Honourable Chief Justice as just “a single judge, in the first instance ruling on an issue that goes to the very heart of the nation’s constitutional future and the vitality of separation of powers (which) is not good enough, not when there are Appeal Courts with panels of judges with similar or greater experience to review the same matter.”
Why is Mr. Maxwell none too pleased  that Guyana’s Chief Justice Ian Chang  has affirmed  the constitutional rights – the highest law of the land  –  of Home Affairs Minister Mr. Clement Rohee  to speak in parliament?.
Can anyone but wish any effort well to fortify the PNC/APNU’s legacy of crushing democratic freedom all over again by such appeals?  Better still could it not give a better signal indication of what the future holds when that party inevitably regains political power with the WPA and AFC as their shields?
Nothing could be more tangential than inserting all one’s quarrels with the Burnham 1980 constitution as valid reasons why the Chief Justice should have constitutionally prevented the Home Minister from fulfilling his democratic and sworn legal responsibilities in parliament when he has not done anything wrong.
So what else bugs Mr. Maxwell? Finding the Chief Justice decision  so inadequate in addressing the constitution’s  inherent flaws  it made him  very appalled  to know that  this ruling could  “say Guyana has no separation of powers and that the Executive dominates every arm of government, including the Legislature,  (which) is a grand euphemism” anyway as far as he is concerned.   There is more which informs Mr. Maxwell’s ire.
In completely rejecting the Honourable Chief Justice’s decision, and only now that the PPP/C is in power, Mr. Maxwell becomes confused why “some call our Guyana constitutional debacle a hybrid system when any basic student of politics knows it is a constitutional dictatorship.
“We have a President who is not elected on his own in a separate election like the US or Mexico or South Africa. We have a President who essentially cheats his way to power by bypassing a direct election for the Presidency and by piggybacking onto a parliamentary election for members of the National Assembly.
“It matters not that this individual would have lost the Presidency to a better candidate if the President was separately elected”.
By such passionate irrelevant, arguments, many conjectures included, can anyone still be in doubt why Mr. Maxwell still sincerely believes his disagreement ought to be taken seriously to invalidate the Home Minister’s constitutional right of free speech in parliament? Especially even if he has not done anything wrong?
How much more should we go past the boundary line of reality into fantasy?   In a matter before the court, Mr. Maxwell actually wants the Honourable Chief Justice to dismiss all the presented evidence from both sides all because our Maxwells really believe otherwise and instead condemn the Guyana constitution as itself flawed, irrelevant to Guyana and bereft of judicial relief from that which is the highest law of the land.
Mr. Maxwell apparently is oblivious how much he has revealed of himself. Obviously he is unaware that it is the constitution which governs and brings into being the executive, legislature and judiciary.
All the magnificence of Mexico, South Africa and of course the US in which Mr. Maxwell has become elevated in competence just by admiration has failed to correspondingly also instruct him about their individual and peculiar judicial firmaments. The US Supreme Court only selects those cases which it wants to adjudicate. They alone decide what requires judicial relief or what, if any clarifications are of such importance to be of significance.
More appeals are certainly available in all Guyana’s cases. Therefore Mr. Maxwell is himself quite free to achieve or encourage Speaker Raphael Trotman, to pursue every “right to appeal this ruling to higher courts who engage in grand societal analysis. A higher court may for instance, consider enforcing the National Assembly’s right to gag Ministers to improve the separation of powers between the Executive and the Legislature, and in doing so, to improve democracy and governance.
“A simple decision like this from the Guyana Court of Appeal or the CCJ effectively reconfigures the Guyanese political landscape for the better”.
Asking the Caribbean Court of Justice  (CCJ) to  interpret Guyana’s constitution and determine its destiny  cannot be more reminiscent of  you know who’s proclivities  to empower  other than Guyanese to chart their future or decide what is “better”.
In seeking any overturning of the Chief Justice constitutional unambiguous ruling let’s see if Mr. Maxwell can ensure  or avert the AFC from being  conjoined with excellent company for a cruise down Kaieteur Falls.
Sultan Mohamed

---

---