Attorney General Anil Nandlall’s challenge of the passage of a no-confidence against Home Minister Clement Rohee is another abuse of the court process, APNU MP Basil Williams says, while noting that the National Assembly has the power to have the minister removed.
“It appears that every time the PPP/C loses a vote in the National Assembly, the AG will seek recourse to the court, despite clear, pellucid and transparent previous rulings of the [Chief Justice] Ian Chang, that in the absence of a constitutional or statutory breach, the courts have no jurisdiction to interfere with proceedings of Parliament under the doctrine of separation of powers,” Williams said at an APNU press conference held at the Office of the Leader of the Opposition yesterday.
“AG Nandlall’s latest motion against the Leader of the Opposition, Brigadier David Granger, and the Speaker of the National Assembly, Raphael Trotman, contending that the motion of no-confidence against Minister Rohee is unconstitutional, null, void and in breach of the doctrine of separation of powers is therefore an abuse of the process of the court,” Williams added.
He charged that Nandlall appears to be obsessed with disrupting and stymieing the business of the National Assembly. “It has always been a characteristic trait of the Marxist-Leninist PPP/C, that if you cannot control it, then you must interrupt it,” he added, noting that Nandlall’s “malignant attitude” to a well functioning National Assembly is making him a “vexatious litigant.”
Responding via GINA yesterday, Nandlall called APNU “propagandistic”. He said Williams’ statement contained “the identical sentiments expressed in the budget cut matter in which they contended that the court had no jurisdiction to interfere and, that they had the power to cut the budget. On both counts, the court ruling established that they were abysmally wrong. The court not only assumed jurisdiction, but ruled that they had no power to reduce the budget and consequently pronounced that their action of cutting the budget was unlawful. It’s either they are being disingenuous or they have misconstrued the court ruling.”
Williams, meanwhile, said that the AG’s latest resort to the courts comes despite Article 106 of the Constitution which provides that the Cabinet including the President shall resign if the government is defeated by a vote of no-confidence by the National Assembly. “APNU submits that if the President and the entire Cabinet including all the ministers must resign on a vote of no-confidence then it must follow that an individual minister must likewise resign on a vote of no-confidence in him or her,” said Williams.
Williams reminded that on March 7, 2012, Nandlall filed a motion in the High Court to have a declaration that the committees of the National Assembly be constituted in proportion to seats obtained at the November 28, 2011 General and Regional Elections. He noted that Nandlall also sought through that motion have a declaration that the manner of comprising the Committee of Selection was in violation of the principle of proportionality and in breach of certain constitutional provisions.
“The learned Chief Justice Ian Chang refused to grant those orders or to set aside the composition of the Committee of Selection voted by the National Assembly,” Williams said.
He also cited the June 4, 2012 approach to the High Court to have a declaration that the Parliament had no power to cut or reduce the budget and for the Minister of Finance to be empowered to make withdrawals from the Contingencies Fund and Consolidated Fund.
In the latter case, the court, in an interim ruling, upheld the budget passed by the National Assembly but found that it did not have the power to make cuts.
Nandlall argued, according to GINA that all that the government is seeking to do is to ensure that “the National Assembly acts intra constitutionally”.
He stated that the legal issues being raised had never been decided by a court. “Therefore, it is imperative to our fledgling democracy that we ventilate them and get judicial guidance because there are obviously conflicting views on these issues,” GINA quoted the AG as saying.
“Rather than be critical of these legal challenges, they should be encouraged for the development of our constitutional jurisprudence and our democracy.
Therefore, the government’s approach should be emulated, not criticised. The alternative is confrontation and chaos,” he said.
