APNU spokesman on Finance Carl Greenidge has called for the relocation of the Parliamentary Counsel from the chambers of the Attorney General (AG) and has said that sending Bills and other material to the AG for advice after approval by the National Assembly is “inappropriate.”
“It is neither a legal nor constitutional requirement,” said Greenidge in a letter to Clerk of the National Assembly Sherlock Isaacs. Amidst an ongoing exchange on the role on the AG after Bills have been passed by the National Assembly, Greenidge urged Isaacs to reconsider the procedure currently employed for the submission of Bills to the President to be signed into law saying that it is the Clerk’s obligation and responsibility to dispatch the Bill to the President and it is for the President to secure the timely advice of his AG and anyone else he deems fit within the time limit stipulated for his consideration of the Bill and its signature.
When contacted by Stabroek News, Isaacs acknowledged receipt of Greenidge’s letter but declined to comment until after a meeting with Speaker of the National Assembly, Raphael Trotman on Tuesday when the matters raised will be discussed. Last week, the long-serving Clerk had said that during his tenure he had never submitted any bill for presidential assent without an “assent certificate” from the AG.
In a letter in response to concerns by Greenidge about two bills in his name passed by the National Assembly but not receiving the assent of the President, Isaacs had explained that in the absence of a Legal Counsel in the Parliament Office, all bills are sent to the AG’s Chambers to ensure that they are properly drafted before they are submitted to the President for assent. “I have never submitted any bill to the President without an assent certificate from the Attorney General,” Isaacs, who has served as Clerk for more than 10 years, wrote in the letter.
The explanation came even as AG Anil Nandlall said that it has been parliamentary convention for his office to certify bills passed by the National Assembly for presidential assent, while he rubbished suggestions by attorney Christopher Ram that he has no role in the process.
With the two opposition bills recently passed by the National Assembly due to be considered for assent by President Donald Ramotar, Nandlall recently told Stabroek News that they were yet to reach his desk. On Friday, he would only say that that the two Bills – the Fiscal Management and Accountability (Amendment) Bill and the Former Presidents (Benefits and Other Facilities) Bill 2012 – were at his Chambers receiving attention. “It is at AG Chambers receiving the appropriate attention and action,” he said.
In his letter to Isaacs, Greenidge urged the Clerk and the Speaker to further examine the Standing Orders “and the changed context in which we operate today relative to when the practice you outline was first instituted.”
He emphasised that there is a need to separate the law offices/services which for convenience tends to be used interchangeably. “Vetting Bills and the work of supporting the Assembly in the drafting of bills is obviously the responsibility of Parliamentary Counsel (PC) (originally termed Legal Draftsmen). The nomenclature alone should make the intended beneficiaries of their services obvious. Those officers happen to be placed in the cluster of the AG’s Chambers only as a matter of convenience,” Greenidge said adding that sometimes technical experts and specialists are grouped together so that they might benefit from the synergy of working among colleagues, peer reviews and performance assessments, among other reasons. He said that they could just have easily been placed in the Parliament itself.
“It also needs to be borne in mind that at the outset of our transition to the current arrangement, the AG was a public officer drawn from the colonial civil service and with a strong sense of professionalism. Although that officer sat in the House he was not a political officer but a technical adviser to the Governor,” Greenidge said.
He noted that the situation changed after independence with the appearance of Ministers of Justice/Legal Affairs and AG rolled into one. According to Greenidge, even so, until 1992, Bills prepared by private members and those prepared by the PPP were sent to the AG’s Chambers where legal draftsmen were located and explicitly charged with advising members of both sides of the House, ensuring that acceptable standards common to the Commonwealth and Westminster system were observed and that the proposed laws do not overlap or conflict with existing legislation.
Greenidge said that in 2011, in spite of the Assembly’s continuing need for assistance, Nandlall informed the Leader of the Opposition that he had no intention of providing drafting or related assistance via the parliamentary counsel. “As a result of politicisation of the post of AG and the location of PC in the AG’s Chambers therefore, we have completely separated the office of PC from the logic of its establishment and existence,” he said. “For this reason the AG should not be directing the work of Parliamentary Counsel and it is time for those officers to be re-located both physically and institutionally in the demesne of the National Assembly as is the case in T&T and Jamaica,” Greenidge wrote. He proposed that this be done by the House and reflected in the 2013 budget.
Meantime, addressing the process by which Bills are sent to the President for assent, Greenidge noted that Isaacs had outlined a process involving input by the Chief PC after Bills have been passed by the House. “To be of use to the Assembly, functions performed by PC would have to be performed prior to the submission of the Bill to the House and in the course of its consideration. Furthermore, if the decisions of the House are to mean anything, those Bills cannot be changed after their passage, save for formatting and obvious typographical errors identified by the Speaker,” he wrote.
“Changes to enacted legislation require amendment by the Assembly itself. In all these circumstances, the idea of sending Bills and other material to the AG himself for advice after approval by the Assembly is inappropriate. It is neither a legal nor constitutional requirement,” Greenidge contended.
With reference to the statement by Nandlall that it is parliamentary convention for his office to certify bills passed by the National Assembly for presidential assent, Greenidge said that it should be discontinued since the AG would have been a partisan participant in the debates on the Bills. He also pointed out that the draft would have been in the hands of the AG’s officials for weeks if not months, and he would already have advised the President of his recommendations when the Bills were being considered by Cabinet prior to, and during the Bill’s passage through the Assembly. “That is as it should be because the AG’s responsibility is to advise the President not the House,” said Greenidge.
“It is… your obligation and responsibility to dispatch the Bill to the President and it is for the President to secure the timely advice of his AG and anyone else he deems fit within the time limit stipulated for his consideration of the Bill and its signature,” Greenidge told the Clerk.
“I would urge therefore that you reconsider the procedure you employ. The Constitution does not specify the AG in the requirements for a presidential response and the relevant date for the presidential assent should logically commence from the time he receives the intended statute from the Parliament not when ‘the certificate’ is received by the AG,” said Greenidge. He said that the speed of the AG’s response is therefore a matter for the President and the AG rather than for the Clerk.
“In essence it is my conviction that having been approved, all Bills should be sent directly to the President for signature,” Greenidge emphasised.
