Walton and the right to equal parliamentary participation

Jun 22, 2026 Letters

Dear Editor,

Constitutional law does not preach discrimination. It prohibits it — without exception for procedural convenience, and without regard to which party benefits. Articles 13, 149, and 150 of Guyana’s Constitution guarantee equal participation regardless of political opinion or party size. A legislature that denies a validly nominated member committee service does not breach mere procedure. It contradicts the democratic principle it exists to embody.

The exclusion of the Honourable Ms. Walton from the Parliamentary Management Committee — despite a valid nomination by APNU’s Mr. Mahipaul and a proper secondment from a main opposition party MP — has no constitutional basis. The speaker’s apparent reliance on a standing order to block the nomination, while implicitly suggesting Walton seek “more seats” at a future election before being entertained again, reflects a posture alien to modern commonwealth democratic practice.

Compare this to how functioning commonwealth parliaments actually operate. In the United Kingdom House of Commons, select committee membership is allocated through cross-party negotiation via the committee of selection, with the explicit principle that committee composition must reflect the political balance of the house — including smaller parties holding only a handful of seats. The procedure committee has repeatedly affirmed that excluding a validly nominated member from committee service undermines the scrutiny function parliament exists to perform. In Canada’s House of Commons, Standing Order 104 requires the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to propose membership lists reflecting each recognised party’s proportional representation, a structural guarantee that no party, however small, is administratively erased from committee participation once properly nominated. New Zealand’s Standing Orders Committee operates on the same principle: a valid nomination, properly seconded, is not discretionary for the speaker to override based on political calculation.

Guyana’s own standing orders were not designed to function as an instrument of exclusion. A legislature gives constitutional rights life; it does not withhold them on pretext. Where a valid nomination exists, supported by proper secondment, the speaker’s obligation is to facilitate participation, not engineer denial.

I illustrate with a personal account of functioning democratic process. In June 1986, as a 26-year-old Canadian serviceman, I asked Liberal MP Charles Caccia to support a petition concerning my Guyanese spouse’s right to travel to Canada to deliver our child. He raised it in the House. The Minister of State for Immigration, Walter McLean, issued a minister’s permit within the hour. My child was born in Toronto within a day. That is what institutions do when they function as constitutional instruments rather than partisan ones, as parliament also demonstrated when it facilitated Mr. Shuman and Ms. Kissoon in comparable circumstances. Those cases were not about partisanship. They were about parliamentary duty, properly discharged.

Walton’s situation requires no petition, no protracted process. A valid nomination, a valid secondment, and a seasoned parliamentarian. What remains is institutional will.

Should the speaker continue to disregard constitutional and administrative law, the proper venue for resolution is parliament itself, through the opposition chief whip – not street protest, not floor outbursts, however understandable, and not newspaper correspondence as a substitute for parliamentary remedy. Commonwealth democratic tradition offers two principal paths for addressing entrenched bad governance peacefully: the ballot box, the simplest and least costly; and the courts, through properly filed proceedings. Gandhi’s satyagraha, the 1961 Freedom Rides, and the 1963 Birmingham Children’s Crusade all demonstrate that disciplined non-violent resistance produces moral clarity institutions cannot ultimately ignore but Guyana’s present circumstance, however troubling, calls for parliamentary and legal remedy, not the exceptional measures reserved for graver crises.

The nomination should stand. Walton-Desir should serve. Commonwealth precedent and Guyana’s own Constitution demand no less.

Regards,

M. Shabeer Zafar,

Barrister-at-Law

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Constitutional law, Guyana’s Constitution, Letters, parliamentary participation

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