Dear Editor,
The following are my personal views.
The effect of the recent ruling of the Speaker confirms the limited effectiveness of the National Assembly. This coupled with the executive’s refusal to even respect motions of the National Assembly and the Attorney General‘s advice to the President not to assent to bills passed by the House, have demonstrated the real impotence of the National Assembly.
In Guyana we now have a House that can pass motions but cannot enforce them.
The National Assembly whenever it sits, gets all dressed up but has nowhere to go.
Finally the inadequacies of the constitution which we have in this dear Republic are being unmasked.
We have a President who is vested with all executive power, part of the parliament but not responsible to it; who has representatives in parliament who cannot be effectively censured or disciplined in spite of their transgressions; and best of all who is not liable for any of his actions either in the National Assembly or before any court.
What a great Republic.
Where else in the world does the citizenry elect a king to rule over them with no responsibility for his actions to the very people who elected him?
It is my hope that now that the Guyanese population has been exposed to the true impotency of the National Assembly they may now be willing to urge all their political representatives to start talking about very urgent constitutional reform before another election. To go back to another election under the present system and expect accountability is lunacy dressed up as democracy.
Never before has the powerlessness of our elected representatives been so clearly displayed.
One Love.
Yours faithfully,
C A Nigel Hughes
