More than two months after two opposition-sponsored bills were passed by the National Assembly and sent to the Office of the President for his assent, President Donald Ramotar says they are yet to reach his desk.
“I haven’t seen the bills… I haven’t seen any of the bills,” the President said yesterday in response to questions during a press conference at the Office of the President.
APNU spokesman on Finance Carl Greenidge had told Stabroek News that Clerk of the National Assembly Sherlock Isaacs wrote him on March 7 informing him that both bills were submitted on February 25 for the President’s consideration.
The two pieces of legislation are the Fiscal Management and Accountability (Amendment) Bill and the Former Presidents (Benefits and Other Facilities) Bill 2012 and both were drafted by APNU with the combined opposition using its one-seat majority to pass them, with strong objections by the ruling party.
Article 170 (2) of the Constitution requires that the President, who is part of Parliament, assent to bills presented to him following passage in the National Assembly. This article also states that where the President withholds his assent, he must return the bill to the Speaker within 21 days with a message stating the reason(s) for withholding his assent. This deadline has passed and Speaker of the National Assembly Raphael Trotman, Greenidge, and AFC leader Khemraj Ramjattan, have expressed concern.
Asked yesterday whether he would assent to the bills when they arrive on his desk, Ramotar said he would have to examine them and then make up his mind what to do with them. “The question doesn’t arise because I haven’t seen those bills. They’re not on my desk,” he added. The President had previously said that he would not sign bills passed without input from his government and pressed about this and whether he had a change of heart, he responded that “I haven’t seen any of the bills that you’re talking about.”
In January, the President had also said that he would seek legal advice on whether he should assent to opposition-piloted legislation. Asked by Stabroek News about the nature of the advice he received, Ramotar said he could not recall making that statement. “None of them have come to me yet so I didn’t have the need to seek the legal advice,” he added.
Asked about the fact that the bills were sent to his office since February 25 and over two months later, they had not reached his desk, Ramotar referred to the length of time it could take for government bills to reach his desk. “It takes time because I think what they do, they go it through with a fine-tooth comb and so forth. So I don’t know if it is extra-long, maybe you could ask the Attorney-General’s office or the office of our governance [about the issue] but what I can tell you with full knowledge of, it has not reached my desk, I haven’t seen it,” he said.
Attorney-General Anil Nandlall had previously told Stabroek News to contact the Office of the President in relation to the Bills.
Trotman last week told Stabroek News that he will engage OP on the bills once the National Budget was passed. The budget was passed on Wednesday.
Greenidge had expressed concern. “I have written to the Speaker asking him to draw to [the attention of] the President, the law and the fact that the deadline has expired,” Greenidge, who laid the bills in the House, told Stabroek News last week in reference to the 21-day deadline. “The President is not supposed to be breaking the law,” he said. Ramjattan had also expressed the view that the President was in breach of the Constitution.
Recently, in a ruling that lifted a gag on Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee speaking in the National Assembly, Trotman said the President cannot withhold his assent for bills passed by the National Assembly except as set out in the Constitution.
“In Guyana, the presidency and National Assembly are creatures of the Constitution. Neither can relate with each other outside the manner prescribed within the Constitution. For that reason, the National Assembly cannot refuse to entertain a member who is appointed by the executive president as a minister except as permitted by the Constitution. In the same way that the executive president cannot withhold his assent for bills passed by the National Assembly except as set out in the Constitution, which is supreme,” he said in the ruling.