Dear Editor,
I refer to the letter by Mr. Isaacs, Clerk of the National Assembly titled `Two precedents have found that the Speaker has no power to convene a sitting of the National Assembly unless the assembly is adjourned to a specified date’ (SN, Oct 21/14). Mr. Isaac’s interpretation of Standing Order 8(2), relying on Mr. Narain’s May 18, 1972 correspondence to Deputy Speaker, Mr. Derek Jagan, is erroneous. Accordingly, so is Mr. Narain’s opinion. Mr. Isaacs’ opinion that the Speaker “can only fix a date for a Sitting when the Assembly is adjourned to a specified date” is incorrect as is his opinion that the only Government can request sittings, based on practice and precedents. The Speaker, Mr. Raphael Trotman is responsible for this mess by failing to do his job and enforce Standing Orders 8(1), 8(2), 9 and 4(6) instead of writing Mr. Isaacs for an opinion and now getting a flawed one that will naturally trigger prolonged legal action that will see the Assembly being held hostage.
Standing Order 8(1) states “Save as otherwise provided by the Constitution or resolved by the Assembly upon a motion moved by a Minister, the Assembly may sit every day except Saturdays and Sundays and, unless the Assembly otherwise decide, every adjournment of the Assembly shall be to the next Sitting day.”
Standing Order 8(2) states “If, during an adjournment of the Assembly, it is represented to the Speaker by the Government, or the Speaker is of the opinion, that the public interest requires that the Assembly should meet on a day earlier than that to which it stands adjourned, the Speaker may give notice accordingly and the Assembly shall meet at the time stated in such notice. The Clerk shall as soon as possible inform each Member in writing, or telegram or by appropriate electronic means of any such earlier meeting.”
Standing Order 9 states “Notwithstanding anything contained in Standing Order No. 8, unless there are special reasons for so doing, no Sitting of the National Assembly shall be held from 10th August to 10th October in any year.”
Standing Order 4(6) states: “The Speaker in the Assembly and the Chairperson in Committee shall have power to regulate the conduct of business in all matters not provided for in these Standing Orders.”
The National Assembly is not logically, legally, constitutionally and in practice adjourned sine die (indefinitely). Mr. Narain himself states in his book “Historical Information Events & Dates on the Parliament of Guyana from 1718 to 2006” as follows “However, this practice faded out in Guyana and has reached the stage where Parliament is now no longer prorogued during its life.” The National Assembly is always sitting in the five year period between elections. SO 8(1) confirms this fact. Standing Order 9 provides for a recess with a defined start and end date. If the intent was to enable indefinite adjournment of the Assembly, then SO 9 would not have provided an end date of October 10. The end date signals the end of an adjournment and the making the Assembly live in terms of its ability to convene pursuant to SO 8(1). Without any opportunity for an indefinite or sine die adjournment, the Speaker is absolutely right to call the Assembly to order as per SO 8(2). Frankly, Mr. Trotman is now within his powers under SO 8(2) to order the Clerk to arrange the meeting of the Assembly and the Clerk would be obliged to obey. Trotman’s actions would be in the public interest on three grounds (1) the convening of the Assembly to do the job it was elected to do, (2) to prevent the indefinite suspension of the Assembly due to political gamesmanship which represents a grave dereliction of duty to the nation and (3) to address a no-confidence motion, which is as powerful an issue in the public’s interest as any.
Mr. Isaacs’ opinion that the government requests the sitting day is flawed for several reasons. Firstly, SO 8(1) makes regular sittings mandatory. Secondly, SO 9 provides for a defined recess during those regular sittings. The expectation is clearly that the Assembly meets on a regular basis. Third, SO 8(2) unequivocally gives the Speaker the right to meet. Fourth, practice in Guyana’s Assembly has been for decades to have regular sittings of the Assembly and moreso, to have regular sittings arranged very shortly after the fixed recess. Fifth, SO 6(4) gives the Speaker the power to regulate any other matters not provided for within the Standing Orders. If this is a matter not provided for within the Standing Order, the Speaker could rely on SO 6(4) to take control of it. Sixth, our constitution allows for the creation of a minority government with opposition control of the Assembly, a powerful separation of power arrangement. What Mr. Isaacs proposes is an affront to this constitutional creation by allowing the executive (government) which is not in control of the legislature to effectively determine when the legislature can sit and inherent in that power, to prevent the legislature from ever sitting if it so devises. This interpretation allows for a virtual lockdown and hostage holding of the Assembly by a government that is a minority within it. Not only is this constitutionally repugnant and illegal and logically fraudulent, it is democratically offensive as well as a virtual decimation of the separation of powers doctrine. Case in point is the PPP’s reluctance to convene the Assembly despite its claims of the pressing public interest need to debate and pass the anti-money laundering bill. Seventh, Mr. Patterson who filed the no-confidence motion on behalf of the AFC stated “The Clerk explained that a case could be made to the Speaker that this is a matter of importance, and the Speaker has the Authority to summon an extraordinary meeting of the National Assembly at any time to address the motion” (http://newssourcegy.com/news/afc-officially-files-confidence-motion-national-assembly/). Now, we have this letter from Mr. Isaacs.
Eight, the two precedents produced by Mr. Isaacs are presented without context and given they are coming from the Clerk of the National Assembly and given the gravamen of the issues at hand and their constitutional and democratic importance for the life of the state itself and its people, I would think that this lack of context is deliberate or negligent. The June 12, 1963 order by the Speaker, Mr. Gajraj, to the Clerk, was issued in a colonial environment where Gajraj was hostile to the very PPP government that voted for him as Speaker. Gajraj had earlier suspended four PPP MPs (including Cheddi Jagan) and his convening of the Assembly without those MPs would have killed the PPP’s Labour Relations Bill on a vote. The Clerk, Mr. Viapree, failed to deal with the matter in his capacity as Clerk. Instead, in an act of gross political partiality, he sent the matter to the AG who expectedly ruled in favour of the government he was sworn to serve. In the 1972 precedent, the PPP tried to get the Deputy Speaker, a PPP member and Cheddi Jagan family member, to convene the Assembly in the absence of the Speaker. In this instance, the Clerk of the National Assembly, Mr. Narain, did what Mr. Viapree should have done in 1963 and addressed the matter himself within his sole exercise of power as Clerk. However, Mr. Narain’s opinion was wrong then as is Mr. Isaacs’ today. These are dramatic and peevish political times. A Clerk cannot produce flaccid precedents bedevilled by twisted contexts. Not because someone did something in the past, it is gospel or even true and must be the basis for automatic future reliance. The public’s interest was not advanced in either of the two examples provided by Mr. Isaacs nor is it advanced by Mr. Isaac’s shallow interpretation today.
Yours faithfully,
M. Maxwell
