Attorney-General Anil Nandlall has written acting Chief Justice Ian Chang emphasising the need for him to issue a final ruling on the challenge to the cuts made to the national budget last year.
Justice Chang had delivered a preliminary ruling last July, finding that the National Assembly did not have the power to reduce the budget.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday at a press conference after Speaker Raphael Trotman had ruled that the National Assembly had the authority to amend the budget, Nandlall said he is yet to receive an answer from Justice Chang.
“I have written to him, to his Honour, indicating the desirability that there should be final pronouncement on this matter,” he said. He would not say how long after the preliminary ruling he dispatched the letter.
Nandlall told reporters that the court has ruled and under the country’s constitution, the court is the final arbiter of matters of law and interpreting the constitution.
He noted that on the one hand, there is the court ruling in a particular manner saying that the National Assembly has no power to cut and on the other hand the National Assembly has pronounced it has the power to cut. “So, you have now a situation of complete and utter confusion… and that is the conundrum that we find ourselves in,” Nandlall said, while noting that the situation can be compounded further if the Chief Justice is to rule finally on the matter.
According to Nandlall, it is unlikely that the Chief Justice will depart from his pronouncements in the preliminary ruling, which contrasts from the ruling of the Speaker. As a result, he said he finds himself in some great difficulty advising the government which one of the pronouncements should be followed.
He pointed out that the courts regularly make pronouncements against the Executive and questioned whether the Executive can take the position that it will not be bound by the court.
“And when it concerns the constitution, we in the Executive can decide that we will determine the constitution and that we will be the final arbiter on what the constitution says or not irrespective of the court’s ruling. I say that to you to demonstrate to you the precipice upon which we are now precariously perched as a nation, as a government and as a country,” he said
The government continues to contend that the interim court ruling on cuts that were made last year had established that the National Assembly could only pass the budget or reject it in its entirety, but Trotman said the House could not be bound by a “preliminary” decision.
“The National Assembly of the Parliament of Guyana has the power to amend, by reducing only, the Estimates of Expenditure submitted by the Minister responsible for Finance,” Trotman ruled on Tuesday.
“The political system practised in Guyana does not negative the authority of the National Assembly to amend Bills and Motions, including those dealing with public finance,” he added, though he cautioned that the power to amend cannot be “used, injudiciously, whimsically, and/or wantonly.”
Trotman’s decision came after almost five hours of arguments on Monday upon a Motion submitted by AFC leader Khemraj Ramjattan, in which he proposed more than $35B in cuts to various sectors. Trotman’s ruling in effect means that the motion is properly before the House.
