Dear Editor,
Lincoln Lewis has been beating a tired drum on the constitution. In a nutshell, his drumbeat is that we should attempt to enforce the current constitution before contemplating changing it.
Mr Lewis bemoans the culture of constitutional demonization that is en vogue in Guyana. I am no attorney or constitutional expert but I have read the constitution several times. Mr Lewis is absolutely wrong on the issue of constitutional defilement. While it remains the supreme law of the land, let us not forget the current 1980 ‘Burnham’ constitution was created out of a fraudulent and rigged referendum in 1978 in which attendance was pegged at 10% of the voting age populace.
The argument could be made that despite its usage since 1980, the 1980 constitution is an inherently illegitimate document because it lacks majoritarian population approval. It cannot be accepted as a true reflection of the Guyanese people, not when they rejected it in 1978 and viewed it as an instrument of dictatorship and autocratic entrenchment.
Thus, constitutional demonization is appropriate, legitimate and expected. It should be encouraged to occasion the radical dismantling of the 1980 constitution, or its most egregious sections, to ensure Guyana eventually gets to vote in proper fashion on its own constitution after ample consultation to attain a path of constitutional rationality, fairness, integrity, balance and proportionality.
Mr Lewis wants us to give legitimacy to this 1980 artifice concocted to cement illegal executive authoritarian power. We cannot. Demonization of this constitution is vital to shaping the psyche of the nation to seek a better constitution. We all know that a better constitution is vital in light of the turmoil and roil of constitutional crises that have defined Guyana since November 2011.
The very notion that enforcement of this 1980 constitution will achieve a better society is as ludicrous as acceptance of this present constitution in its current form as ameliorative of our condition. The 1980 constitution is built on the false premise of a flaccid separation of powers doctrine revolving around the dominance of the executive arm of the state.
Mr Lewis needs to make up his mind. He cannot want this constitution and yet bemoan its tyrannical exploitation and implementation such as in the recent prorogation of Parliament.
Mr Lewis is out to lunch on his view that Article 70(1) was a “misapplication” (see ‘Voices in the coming days should be directed at returning sovereignty to the people’ SN, November 12). Article 70(1) states, “The Presi-dent may at any time by proclamation prorogue Parliament.” There is no misapplication there. The seizure, hijacking and destruction of the separation of powers is very apparent in that article. The Commonwealth nations Mr Lewis referred to with a prorogation mechanism are all bound to exercise that mechanism in consultation with the head of state or an oversight body. There is no such control under Article 70(1). It is wide open, undiluted and unmitigated power.
Mr Lewis has to stop peddling this notion that rightful attacks on the Burnham constitution are uncalled for. It is this thinking that the document is curable and its monstrosities manageable that caused the PNC to leave this 1980 constitution intact when its political damnation in 1992 was already a foregone conclusion. Mr Lewis does not get it that the so-called people power celebrated in the constitution is easily trampled upon by the vast unchecked and unbalanced executive powers that haunt it.
It is troubling that in this very moment of dictatorship that Mr Lewis has the gall to suggest the Guyanese people are wrong in blasting the very constitutional architecture and its architects that now hand a minority president the kind of power to silence the opposition-dominated legislature.
Yours faithfully,
M Maxwell
