All bills including the anti-money laundering and telecoms bills as well as documents such as the Auditor General’s report are casualties of the prorogation of Parliament and as a result, the bills “die” while the reports on statutory bodies will be out of reach of the public, analyst Christopher Ram says.
Writing on his blog, Ram noted that in the UK Parliament – which serves as a guide for Guyana when the Standing Orders of the Guyana Parliament do not provide for a matter – prorogation brings to an end nearly all parliamentary business. However, Public Bills may be carried over from one session to the next, subject to agreement.
“Since there was no opportunity for a carry-over motion when the National Assembly was prorogued on November 10, UK practice would suggest that all the Bills before the National Assembly that the Government so badly wanted passed would fall.
The three Bills that immediately come to mind are the Telecommuni-cations (Amendment) Bill; the Anti-Money Launder-ing and Combating the Finance of Terrorism (Amendment) Bill; and the Supplementary Appropria-tion Bill 2014 which was the “casus belli” for the AFC’s No Confidence Motion in the first place,” Ram wrote.
On November 10, President Donald Ramotar suspended Parliament triggering the country’s worst political crisis since the 2011 general elections. His government has not been able to mobilise support for its move.
Ram also said that the Committees of the National Assembly which number about a dozen are also casualties of the suspension of Parliament. This includes the Public Accounts Committee, the Committee on Appoint-ments, the Constitution Reform Committee, four sectoral Committees, the Committee of Privileges and the Statutory Instru-ments Committee. None of these can function during prorogation, he said.
The attorney also noted that there are a variety of Commissions created during the last constitutional reform, quite a few of which require inputs from the Committee on Appointments of the National Assembly. “Some of these have not been constituted, including famously the Public Procurement Commission. Prorogation means that that Commission cannot be constituted during prorogation nor can vacancies requiring inputs from the National Assembly be filled,” he said.
“The third casualty would be those documents and records such as the annual reports of statutory bodies which have to be laid in the National Assembly before they become public. Important among these is the Report of the Auditor General on the public accounts of Guyana. Until the National Assembly meets again, these documents will be out of the reach of the public,” Ram wrote.
He said that the fourth casualty and arguably the most significant is the Budget which must normally be laid before the National Assembly no later than March 31 of the year.
If the prorogation runs the full six months allowed by the Constitution then the Budget cannot be presented until May 10, 2015, days after any automatic spending authority for 2015 will expire, Ram pointed out.
Meantime, he said that what is not a casualty is parliamentarians’ compensation and privileges with all salaries and allowances to Members of the National Assembly being paid intact and duty free concessions available on a request to the Clerk of the National Assembly.
“Maybe those MP’s who are so strongly opposed to the prorogation should publicly renounce any salaries and benefits during the period of the prorogation.
That would be principled based politics,” he suggested.
According to Ram, Guyana is in uncharted waters and he hopes that the Speaker, the Leader of the House and the Government and Opposition Whips are using the enforced prolongation of their break – now into its 136th day since the National Assembly last met –considering some of the issues that a resumption of the National Assembly would throw up. “They ought not to wait and guess,” he said.
“Of course if the President makes good on his threat to exercise his power of dissolution then all bets are off and the issue would be about the spending authority of the Executive. Now that is a horse of a different breed, thoroughbred or otherwise,” he added.
