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Trial over legality of passage of NRF Act gets underway
Kaieteur News – Leader of the Alliance for Change (AFC) and Opposition Parliamentarian, Khemraj Ramjattan was the first person to take the witness stand as the trial in the case filed to challenge the passage of the controversial Natural Resource Fund (NRF) Act got underway on Monday.
Attorney General, Anil Nandlall, SC, (centre), House Speaker, Manzoor Nadir (right), and Clerk of the National Assembly, Sherlock Isaacs standing on the corridors of the High Court.
The NRF Act is meant to ensure that there is security, transparency and accountability surrounding revenues the country gains from oil and gas. It also outlines a structure of how the monies from oil and gas will be used and provide for continuous public disclosures, audits and parliamentary approvals. The Act also has stiff penalties for breach of any part of the Act.
Opposition Chief Whip, Christopher Jones and Trade Unionist, Norris Witter had filed the legal challenge to the Act which was passed on December 29 last.
Among other things, the duo claimed that due to the absence of the ‘Parliamentary Mace’ – the most significant symbol in the National Assembly, and some members not seated, the Act cannot be regarded as being lawfully passed. The case, which is before Justice Navindra Singh, commenced at the Georgetown High Court on Monday.
Under cross-examination by Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall, S.C, Ramjattan was asked a series of questions, including whether his fellow Opposition Parliamentarians were blowing whistles in the National Assembly.
Ramjattan admitted that some A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) Members of Parliament (MPs) were blowing whistles, walking around, and refused to take their seats as a display of their disapproval of the NRF Bill. He told the court, however, that he remained in his seat as everything unfolded.
When asked several other questions as it related to that incident, Ramjattan said he either could not recall or didn’t give a direct response. He had to rely on video recordings of what transpired that day. The recordings were later tendered as exhibits in the case.
Witter was the next witness to be called, but Nandlall objected on the ground that most of what is in his statement amounts to ‘hearsay evidence’ and was ‘inadmissible.’
Senior Counsel Roysdale Forde, Witter’s and Jones’s lawyer, however, asked that Witter’s evidence be relied on to prove the truth of the matters asserted. But Justice Singh upheld Nandlall’s objections, stopped Witter’s testimony, and adjourned the trial. The Trade Unionist will continue his testimony on November 8, while Jones will begin his testimony the following day.
Outside the courtroom, the Attorney General (AG) told the media that the Government has a good start to the case challenging the legality of the NRF Act. Nandlall said based on what transpired in the court, it was a favourable start to the trial. The AG said, as he questioned the witness (Ramjattan), it was confirmed that the grounds on which the case is being challenged does not hold merit.
“Significantly he answered many of the questions that I asked of him confirming many things. One, that there is no requirement either in the standing order or in the constitution for a mace to be in place in the exercise of Parliament’s legislative power. Secondly, that many bills have been passed in the National Assembly without consultation,” the AG related.
Nandlall said, “He (Ramjattan) also had to agree with my suggestions and questions of how disorderly his members behaved in the Parliament, that they defied rulings of the Speaker, that they were cited several times by the Speaker for this defiance, they blew the whistle, march, and made noise in the National Assembly, that they descended into the well of the National Assembly without the permission of the speakers, that as a result of their ruckus conduct that the assembly had to be adjourned, that they broke the mace and that they assaulted members of staff of the Parliament.”
The AG had long held that the “Mace has no relevance and place in the exercise of Parliament’s constitutional power and authority to make laws…”
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