Attorney General Anil Nandlall has moved to the High Court to challenge the passage of the parliamentary motion of no-confidence carried against Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee.
According to a report from the Government Information Agency (GINA), the constitutional notice of motion was filed on September 13, 2012 and seeks to have the motion, moved by Leader of the Opposition David Granger and passed by the opposition using its majority in July, declared as unlawful, a violation of the doctrine of separation of powers, unconstitutional, null and void and without any binding effect in so far as it purports to censure and express no-confidence in the Home Affairs Minister.
GINA said that the notice made mention of the fact that since the passage of the motion in Parliament, leaders of both APNU and AFC have made statements to the effect that the National Assembly will sanction Minister Rohee if the said no-confidence motion is ignored by him and/or the government.
“The no-confidence motion against Minister Rohee is incapable in law or under the Constitution of removing him from office. Ministers are appointed by the President of Guyana in accordance with Article 106 of the Constitution and are assigned ministerial portfolios by the Head of State in accordance with Article 107 of the Constitution. Moreover the Home Affairs Minister is also an elected geographic representative of the Parliament,” it said.
It said that government has held firm to the view that “this no-confidence motion is simply an expression of the House’s opinion on a given issue and has no binding effect on the government and as such it is unconstitutional and an abuse of the parliamentary process.”
The opposition had used its majority to pass the motion expressing no-confidence in and calling for the removal of Rohee. The opposition had rejected a slew of amendments Prime Minister Sam Hinds had proposed aimed at softening the motion’s impact.
During the debate, Rohee said that the no-confidence motion cannot and will not arrive at the truth of the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the three persons in Linden—which was among the issues that prompted the motion—and he said that to place those deaths at his feet flies in the face of the presumption of innocence. “I await the Commission of Inquiry and I do so with a clear conscience,” Rohee had said during the debate.
