What is the alternative?

Apr 09, 2022 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – The formula for the appointment of a Chancellor and Chief Justice is not a problem. The source of the country’s inability to make substantive appointments to these posts resides with our toxic political relations.
At the root of the failure to appoint a Chancellor and Chief Justice is the obsession in securing political advantages when it comes to these appointments. It is bitterly ironic that the PNC/R which wants the appointment of the person acting or performing the duties of Top Cop to be based on seniority. Yet, this same party for the past 20 years had little regard for seniority in the judiciary. It was the PNC/R which was opposed to Justice Carl Singh being appointed as substantive Chancellor of the Judiciary. Justice Ian Chang ended his judicial career as acting Chief Justice because the PNC/R did not concede to confirming him in the post.
The APNU+AFC had an opportunity to confirm the present acting Chancellor and Chief Justice. Instead, the then President proposed a Guyanese who had served in Belize as his choice for Chancellor. The PNC/R, therefore, was clearly never interested in seniority when it comes to the appointment of top judicial offices.
If the PNC/R had its way, that jurist who had served in Belize would have been the Chancellor today. But the PNC/R was not able to bulldoze through its nominee because the Constitution of Guyana requires not only consultations between the President and the Leader of the Opposition, it also requires consensus – the approval of the Leader of the Opposition is required before any appointment can be made.
The genesis of this consensus formula dates back to the 2001 elections. Following those elections, won comprehensively by the PPP/C, two prominent members of civil society with ties to the PNC/R sent a letter to the former US President Jimmy Carter who was in Guyana observing the elections process. The members expressed concerns about violence and requested his assistance in facilitating agreement on governance and reconciliation. Carter in turn is said to have drafted a short statement for consideration and signature by the leaders of the PNC/R and the PPP/C.
Reproduced in the Carter Center’s Final Report on the 2001 polls, the statement committed the leadership of the parties to an inclusive system of governance which will involve both the government and the Opposition being involved in selecting the leadership of parliamentary standing committees and key State appointments, not limited to the post of Chief Justice, Chancellor and Auditor General.
It was reported that both leaders agreed with substance of the statement but declined to sign. Hoyte, obviously, would have been smarting from the pushback he had received after having agreed to electoral reforms in 1991.
In its Final Report on the 2001 General and Regional Elections, the Carter Center noted that: “While credible and accurate elections are essential to democratization, it is clear that in Guyana’s “winner-take-all” political system with its recurring patterns of ethnic voting and political polarization, elections alone will not produce an inclusive system of governance with broad participation by all major groups. In order to promote genuine political reconciliation and development, the government and the major parties in Parliament, working together with civil society, should continue the process of constitutional and electoral reform.”
The two sides have not been able to agree to substantive appointments. But this is not an indictment against the formula but rather against the country’s toxic politics.
Gridlock has resulted for more than 20 years now. The head of the Guyana Bar Association has described the formula as unworkable. She has called for a better approach but fell short of making any recommendations.
The Attorney General in response is reported to have support the need for a change in the formula. But he too has offered no alternative.
Those who are now criticising the formula have not presented any options for consideration. If the government and the Opposition cannot have consensus on the appointees, it is going to be much more difficult for them to agree to a change in the formula which does not require the approval of either side.
The formula was part of a process of political inclusion. And the price of that objective has been gridlock. Are those who are calling for a change in the formula willing to delink the new formula from the process of political inclusion? And will the PNC/R agree to this. You bet it will not! (The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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