Speaker of the National Assembly Raphael Trotman yesterday went ahead with a Committee of Selection meeting to elect the chairpersons for several parliamentary committees despite an appeal from Prime Minister Sam Hinds for it to be suspended until the court rules on their composition.
In the absence of the government members, the Committee of Selection – chaired by Trotman – voted on the chairpersons for about eight committees.
“After the last meeting, both sides named their members. As is customary, I asked the Clerk to convene [yesterday’s] meeting to elect the chairpersons for those committees,” Trotman said in an invited comment.
“The letter came from the Prime Minister’s Office saying not to proceed with the meeting. I decided to go ahead with the meeting. There is no Court Order restraining us from proceeding on the matter,” said Trotman.
“Whatever we do will be subjected to judicial interpretation. We respect the rule of law but we also respect the Constitution,” he said.
Contacted for a comment, Khemraj Ramjattan of the Alliance for Change (AFC) said that matters of the court should not be used as subterfuge for stalling the Parliament’s business,
“They are saying that because the matter is in court they feel that all should wait on the court’s decision.”
He said that after the Speaker declared that he was going ahead with the meeting notwithstanding the Prime Minister’s letter, members of APNU and AFC present at the meeting were in concurrence.
“We [in the AFC] felt that the Prime Minister’s letter had no merit in it. If we allow litigation to bring Parliament to a halt, it would mean that anyone [could bring litigation] and bring the work of the Parliament to a halt,” he said. “It illustrates why the doctrine of separation of powers [is an important one],” he said, calling what the government is attempting to do as abominable.
“We just cannot understand why they would take this approach. We would have none of it. We went ahead and named the chairpersons of the committees and we would get on with the business of those committees,” he said.
Further, he said that the AFC will go ahead at the next sitting of the National Assembly where three motions coming from members of the APNU with a view to voting on those motions. “The motions are going to be dealt with whether the PPP comes or not,” said Ramjattan.
‘Dictatorship of one’
At a news conference at Office of the President yesterday afternoon, Hinds said that in light of the court action, government would “be obliged to withhold participation [from the Committee of Selection] in deference to the process.” He added that the government’s position is that until the matter in the High Court is determined, no arrangement should be proceeded with to set up the parliamentary committees.
“Our position is that ‘4:4’ certainly doesn’t reflect 49:41 percent, it doesn’t reflect that situation and we are arguing that committees of ten, which have been traditionally heeded t
o, we should stay with the committees of ten,” he said.
Hinds was accompanied by Presidential Advisor on Governance Gail Teixeira and Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh and they objected to the move to convene a meeting to proceed with the setting up of the committees, saying it is in contempt of the High Court.
“We want to assure the public that we will continue to put our case, not only in terms as government but we believe that our role as custodians of the constitution and the democracy that we fought for so hard in this country and we will continue to represent and we would continue to have one or two little bit tweaks here and there but we will continue, we are not being muzzled by this dictatorship of one,” Teixeira said.
“We [the PPP/C], at the last elections, were the party with the largest block of votes. That is incontestable, no matter which way you cut it and turn it upside down… it is true that no party got an absolute majority but there is a difference between not having an absolute majority and being a party that has the largest block of votes,” she added.
Teixeira accused the opposition of trying to confuse the public, while noting that the PPP/C has 32 seats in parliament as the party with the largest block of votes, exceeding APNU and AFC by tens of thousands of votes. She added that the constitution does not recognise in the allocation of the seats two sides of the House but rather parties and their electoral strength.
“And, therefore, this attempt to mathematically confuse the Guyanese population must be addressed,” she said.
The government’s position is that the Committee of Selection should have five members from the PPP/C, four from APNU and AFC one, but this was shot down by the opposition. Instead, the committee has nine members with both the ruling party and APNU having four members each and AFC one.
The plan by the opposition to move a motion next Wednesday to amend the Standing Orders to reconfigure other committees to be made up of nine members was described by Teixeira as “ominous.”
“These issues mustn’t be treated as if this is a little quarrel going on between [parties] and we are fighting over these issues and they are inconsequential. My dear members of the press, these are ominous developments in the Parliament of Guyana and they are ominous in terms of the threat to democracy of this country,” she said.
Teixeira added that the action of the opposition flies in the face of their declaration of working towards corporation and partnership. In her years as a Member of Parliament, she said, whenever there is gridlock in the committees, the recourse is always to the House to solve it. “So the gridlock argument is a farce, it is a sham, [an] absolute sham,” she said, pointing out that it is very rare in a committee for there to be a vote.
APNU motions
At the next sitting, three motions will be considered: one moved by APNU’s Joseph Harmon with regard to the representation on sectoral committees, another moved by Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine looking at the composition of the Parliamentary Management Committee, and finally one moved by Basil Williams on the right to vote in Parliamentary committees.
Harmon’s motion is seeking to have Standing Order No. 86(2) amended to read that representation on the Sectoral Committees should be calculated in accordance with the seat allocation to the Political Parties in Parliament; and that the four Sectoral Committees are not be constituted until and unless representation thereto is calculated in accordance with the seat allocation to the political parties in the 10th Parliament.
Dr. Roopnaraine’s Motion is seeking to amend Standing Order No. 85(2) to provide for the composition of the Parliamentary Management Committee to be nine members; and that representation on the nine members Parliamentary Management Committee shall be determined in accordance with the seat allocation to the Political Parties in the Assembly.
Williams’ motion seeks to amend Standing Orders Nos. 80(5), 88(2) and 93(2) to read that only an elected member of the Assembly shall have the right to vote in any Standing Committee, Select Committee and Special Select Committee.
Hitherto, Standing Orders Nos. 80(5), 88(2) and 93(2) allow any member of the Assembly, whether elected or non-elected, to be members of any Standing Committee, Select Committee and Special Select Committee, and had the right to vote therein.
Williams, in a comment to this newspaper, said that the motions are designed to reflect the opposition majority in the National Assembly. “Parliament before catered for a government majority. The Sectoral Committees had four for the government and three for the opposition,” he said of the pre-opposition majority years.
