No need for a Constitutional Reform Commission by way of ordinary law

Jul 11, 2017 Letters

Dear Editor,
Almost every day before the Constitutional Court, the Attorney General advances the outmoded and the constitutionally heretic contention that the President’s actions and decisions are beyond judicial review or inquiry and cannot be challenged in any court of law. This argument was roundly rejected by the Privy Council only a few weeks ago and has been authoritatively destroyed by the Guyana Court of Appeal over fifteen years ago.
Yet, the Attorney General laboriously persists with it. Such an anachronistic posture does not come from the legal advisor of a Government that has any intention of reducing Executive or Presidential powers.
The Government was boxed in a corner last February, when a United Nations team visited Guyana to review the state of constitutional reform in the country. The Government was forced to give a commitment to accelerate the process. This was followed by a similar intervention from the Carter Center in collaboration with the United Kingdom (UK), in April this year. Massa cracked his whip. The Coalition Government could no longer dither.
It is this, which has catapulted the Prime Minister, who has a lot of time on his hands, into action. Ever since, he has inundated the press with “updates” on the constitutional reform process. Over the past few weeks, “the process” has moved into overdrive. Two weeks ago the nation was informed by the Office of the Prime Minister that a “Constitutional Reform Commission Bill” will soon be tabled in the Parliament.
In an interview with the press, I pointed out that the establishment of such a Commission is both unnecessary and superfluous, since we have had a Parliamentary Standing Committee for Constitutional Reform established by the Constitution, our supreme law, since 2001.

The mandate of this Committee is to continually review “the effectiveness of the working of the Constitution and making period reports thereon to the Assembly, with proposals for reform as necessary.” To assist it in its work, “the committee shall have the power to co-opt experts or enlist the aid of other persons of appropriate expertise, whether or not such experts or other persons are members of the National Assembly.” [See Article 119 (A) of the Constitution].
It begs the question, therefore: why the need for a Constitutional Reform Commission by ordinary law, in the face of Article 119 (A) of the Constitution? This Article confers the Committee it created with a very encompassing mandate. Is this another opportunity to waste millions of taxpayers’ dollars and to provide jobs for political sinecures?
The idea for the establishment of such a Commission by statute, may misguidedly owe its genesis to the Constitutional Reform Act of 1999, which established a similar Commission. This idea, however, is otiose, because in 1999, we did not have Article 119 (A) of the Constitution. In fact, Article 119 (A) is a product of the Constitution Reform Commission of 1999-2001. The clear intention was to avoid the establishment of another ad hoc CRC, but instead, to have one of permanence.
Earlier this week, in a media release, the Prime Minister announced that the Government took a decision that “the Constitutional Reform and Consultative Bill will be laid in the National Assembly before the Parliamentary recess in August.” You will note that the word “Commission” is now absent from the title of the Bill.

One can only hope that my observations were taken on board. However, I now have another query: why is a Bill necessary for constitutional reform? A Bill was required in 1999, because we did not have Article 119 (a) of the Constitution.
All that is needed now is for a set of Terms of Reference to be crafted and handed to the Standing Committee on Constitutional Reform.

That Committee has a mandate to call in-aid additional staff and to co-opt any number of experts it may deem necessary in the discharge of its responsibilities.

Clearly, it would have the power to hold public consultations under existing Standing Orders, both within and without the precincts of the Parliament. This proposed Bill, therefore, is another pappy show and publicity gimmick. This Bill is wholly unnecessary. It may be enacted but will constitute another colossal wastage of scarce public monies. The process is going nowhere in the near future.
Anil Nandlall

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