Clearly one of these articles must go

Mar 01, 2014 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
I have had great difficulty reconciling two articles of our constitution since a situation has developed where they presently conflict with each other, and is consequently leading to some very serious confusion in this country, violating the constitutional rights of the majority of our people in the process.
I have written on this before, ever since it was explained to me. I don’t have to be a lawyer to ask these questions, since Lord Denning himself the one-time Chief Justice of the UK, once declared that a good lawyer should be able to explain the law to the common man.
My problem is that we cannot have a constitution which is in collision with any part of itself. Our constitution, whatever the situation, should have been written with the vision which makes it work equitably, regardless of circumstances.
Before I start however I must say, that subject to correction, there are numerous clauses in our constitution which I saw when I was searching for clause 177, which are not enforced today. I don’t know if this is due to changes made to the document or whether, like many other laws in our constitution itself, it is being violated in this country with impunity.
I will give two examples: 1. No citizen who has allegiance to any other sovereign state can become a member of our parliament, but we have in our parliament people who have green cards for the US and even worse some are citizens of some other country, and 2. Article 161 which deals with the members of the election commission. This article was temporarily suspended by Act No. 15 of 1995, but this temporary suspension seems to be permanent since it has been going on for nearly 20 years.
How long was it intended to be temporary? I raise the question since the person currently sitting as Elections Commission Chairman cannot qualify to be Elections Commission Chairman under article 161, especially since he has to date turned in a somewhat less than a stellar performance.
But to return to my reason for writing this letter, article 9 of the Guyana constitution states clearly that “Sovereignty belongs to the people, who exercise it through their representatives and the democratic organs established by or under this Constitution”. It is from this first article that all other articles regarding the functioning of Parliament is founded, from this first important principle the other articles merely establish the methodology as to how the constitution will function to establish the sovereignty of the people.
Since 2011 another article has imposed itself on Guyana which violates this first, most important article 9, and it is article 177, which states at 177 (2) A Presidential candidate shall be deemed to have been elected as President and shall be so declared by the Chairman of the Elections Commission.
(a) if he is the only Presidential candidate at the election; or
(b) where there are two or more Presidential candidates, if more votes are cast in favour of the list in which he is designated as Presidential candidate than in favour of any other list.
Our constitution did not visualise that the sovereignty of the people can be violated by the enactment of article 177 which allows a lame duck president to establish the government in this country without enough seats to control parliament, and therefore the majority of the people in this country have been denied their sovereignty.
Clearly one of these articles must go, and since sovereignty of the people is the foundation of our, and all other democratic constitutions existing, then it is article 177 which has to be repealed, or modified, at least to say that the president with the largest bloc of votes cannot form the government legally unless he has control of the Parliament, so that the sovereignty of the majority of the people can be established.
This, in my humble opinion, based on solid legal advice, is what should be the most important issue occupying the opposition at this time, i.e., that we have a constitutional crisis in this country created by the 2011 election and nothing is being done to rectify the situation, and that the majority of the people in this country who did not vote for the PPP are being denied their constitutional right to sovereignty.
Tony Vieira

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