-US constitutional expert
The biggest challenge to entrenching the rule of law is criminal justice, Ilya Shapiro, a constitutional expert told a US embassy-organised conference on security on Tuesday
Shapiro, Senior Fellow in Constitutional Studies of the Cato Institute and Editor in Chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review made a presentation on “The Rule of Law” at the Civil–Military Relations Seminar which has been boycotted by the Guyana Government.
Shapiro posited that the rule of law is encapsulated in “a principle of governance whereby all persons, institutions, entities – including the State itself –is accountable to laws and not personal authority.”
Such laws, it was asserted, must be “publicly passed by a representative body”, “enforced equally by enforceable organs who themselves follow the law”, and “reviewed, interpreted, and applied by an independent judiciary.”
Shapiro articulated that the rule of law exists when individuals are secure in their persons and property, “the State itself is bound by the law and does not act arbitrarily”, the law can be readily determined and is stable enough for citizens to plan their affairs, “individuals have meaningful access to an effective and impartial legal system”, and “basic human rights are protected by the State”.
Shapiro declared that for a place like Guyana people must be able to live without fear and feel secure that the rules under which they conduct their lives today will be there tomorrow.
He added that the biggest challenge to establishing the rule of law is criminal justice. “Most of our efforts go to promoting confidence in the three legs of the criminal justice stool: police, courts and prisons.”
Key to the rule of law in this context, it was contended, is that the suspect’s fate depend not on who he is – by religious sect, tribe, ethnic group, regional origin, or political belief – but on what he has done.
It was posited that not every country needed to have an “American or English or German or Singaporean…justice system.” Shapiro continued that even setting aside issues of culture, one cannot implement centuries of development overnight. “We simply cannot impose a legal system (substantively or procedurally) and expect it to take root. Like political institutions, legal ones must be organic – and foreign-born innovations must be graftable onto local legal-political cultures – or they will be rejected.”
Shapiro acknowledged upon being questioned by Stabroek News, that there exists a forward and backward nexus between development in terms of widespread and equitable economic growth and development and a societal culture conducive to the prevailing of the rule of law.
During Tuesday’s interactive session, several questions were raised relating to the viability of the Guyanese legislature and judicature including the failure or refusal of the administration to consult the Guyana Bar Association on important legislature being passed in the National Assembly such as the Court of Appeal (Amendment) Bill. It was also stated that the proposed legislation for communication interception should have seen broad civil society consultation in its drafting. It was recently tabled in Parliament but debate on it has been deferred.
Several members of the audience posited that the US had a tangible role to play in the encouragement of the Guyana Government in maintaining its commitment to the rule of law.