Telling the nation that a sitting of the National Assembly must await the outcome of a meeting between the President and Opposition Leader demonstrates contempt for the people and the Speaker must bring an end to this situation without delay, former Speaker of the National Assembly Ralph Ramkarran says.
Over the past weeks, there has been a debate as to who has the authority to reconvene sittings at the end of a recess where a date has not been fixed for sittings. Clerk of the National Assembly Sherlock Isaacs has said that the government has to call the sitting while Ramkarran has said that the current Speaker is obligated to convene a sitting of Parliament soonest and has the authority to do so. Current Speaker Raphael Trotman has said that he has consulted with former House speakers and was considering the way forward. He is to make a proposal today.
In addition, on Friday, government’s chief whip in the National Assembly Gail Teixeira said that she is awaiting the outcome of the ongoing engagement between President Donald Ramotar and Opposition Leader David Granger before setting a date to reconvene Parliament.
Wholly wrong
In his Sunday Stabroek column yesterday, Ramkarran said that it has been wholly wrong and ultra vires the power of the current and past Speakers to convene the National Assembly at the request of the Government, in clear violation of Standing Order 8(1). “If the parties wish to have the possibility of adjourning the National Assembly to an unspecified date, and for it to be convened at the request of the Government or the Chief Whips or someone else, then the Standing Order should be amended and such a rule included. It was wholly wrong for the stakeholders to manufacture a practice, elaborate examples of which the Clerk set out in his letter, which violated Standing Order 8(1),” he wrote.
While Ramkarran has been basing his arguments on Standing Order 8 (1), Isaacs has relied on Standing Order 8 (2) which states that “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 had said that it was not possible in his view for the Speaker to set a date and that the Speaker only had the authority to adjust a date that had already been set should the public interest arise. When it went into recess, the Assembly was adjourned without a date for its reconvening fixed. Isaacs also cited two precedents which he said have backed up his position.
However, Ramkarran in his column said that ‘Practice and precedents’ upon which the Clerk seeks to rely “do not and cannot supersede or violate a specific rule, such as Standing Order 8(1), now that it has been correctly interpreted, or give power to the Speaker to fix a date where none exists, as I have argued and as the Clerk has agreed.”
“It does not matter for how long a practice or precedent has been in force. It was wrong when it started. It is wrong now,” he declared. Ramkarran argued that the National Assembly is as independent as the other two branches of government – the executive and the judiciary – which do not have to wait on any outside agency to fix meetings. Referring to Teixeira’s statement, he said that a representative of the executive has now said that the nation must await the outcome of a meeting between the President and Opposition Leader before a meeting of its elected representatives can take place. “What contempt! The Speaker must bring an end to this practice without delay,” Ramkarran asserted.
In reiterating his arguments, he noted that the National Assembly, when adjourned without a date being fixed, must sit on the next sitting day pursuant to Standing Order 8(1).
“The word ‘convene’ may be causing some difficulty. The Speaker cannot actually ‘convene’ by fixing a date for the sitting. As the Clerk says, and as I pointed out last week, he has no power to do so. By virtue of Standing Order 8(1), the Speaker must instruct the Clerk to ‘convene’ a sitting of the National Assembly, that is to say, to administratively set up a sitting on the ‘next sitting day’ in accordance with Standing Order 8(1). The Speaker has no power to fix any other date other than the ‘next sitting day’,” Ramkarran wrote.
He noted Isaacs’ statement that “When matters are not provided for in our Rules, we refer to practice and precedents.”
Analyzed
However, the former Speaker said that the matter is provided for in the rules, namely, Standing Order 8(1), on which he had relied and to which the Clerk makes no reference. “This Standing Order provides that: (i) the Assembly may sit every day except Saturday and Sunday; and (ii) the Assembly is adjourned to the next sitting day unless it decides otherwise. Had this rule been analyzed before, there would never have been any need to establish a practice or precedent,” Ramkarran said.
“In considering this Standing Order, cognizance must be taken that (i) no rule provides for the convening of the National Assembly if there is an adjournment but no date is fixed and (ii) no power is given to the Speaker to fix a date either of his own motion or at the behest of the Government or the Chief Whips or anyone else. Taken together, this can only mean that Standing Order 8(1) applies and the National Assembly sits automatically on the ‘next sitting day’ after an adjournment without date, such as after the recess. It has to be concluded that the drafters did not intend to give power to the Speaker to fix a date when no date is fixed,” he argued.
“Because the issue has never arisen before, every Speaker, Member of Parliament and parliamentary official in the past and present went along with the assumption that there was no rule providing for the convening of the National Assembly if it is adjourned without date. Consequently, the practice grew up that where such an adjournment took place, it was the Government’s responsibility to indicate a date to the Speaker when it wished the National Assembly to be convened. Again, as a matter of practice, the Speaker complied,” the former Speaker stated.
“Now that an impasse has arisen and the matter had been examined in some depth, it is clear that the reason why the drafters did not include a separate rule in the Standing Orders to deal with a situation where the National Assembly is adjourned to a ‘date to be fixed,’ is because they did not intend that the National Assembly should remain adjourned indefinitely. They clearly intended that sittings of the National Assembly should automatically proceed every day or on fixed days. They may well have anticipated the danger of a situation where sittings are subject to the whims of a Government, a minority one in this case, which refuses to give a date to the Speaker and refuses to agree to one with the Opposition,” he said.
