In submissions to his challenge over the appointment of Sarah Browne and Vikash Ramkissoon as Parliamentary Secretaries, APNU+AFC MP Christopher Jones says there is no provision permitting such appointees to hold seats as Elected Members of the National Assembly.
Last September, Browne and Ramkissoon were appointed under Article 186 of the Constitution which provides that Parliamentary Secretaries may be appointed from among persons who are qualified to be elected as members of the National Assembly.
Such Secretaries are appointed by the President to assist specific subject ministers and may respond to questions and debate matters in the Assembly; but they do not have voting rights.
Browne was appointed to Minister of Amerindian Affairs Pauline Sukhai, while Ramkissoon was appointed to Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha.
Following the appointments which he calls unlawful, Jones, however, moved to the court seeking a number of declarations for them to be invalidated, arguing that the two are also not lawful members of the National Assembly.
Against this background, he also seeks in his Fixed Date Application, orders directing the Speaker to prevent Browne and Ramkissoon from sitting in, or participating in the business of the National Assembly.
In submissions recently laid over to the court, Jones contends that the fundamental issue is not whether Browne and Rankissoom were entitled and eligible to be appointed Parliamentary Secretaries, but whether they are entitled to be Members of the National Assembly by virtue of their appointment to the office of Parliamentary Secre-tary, at the time when they were elected Members of the House.
Apart from Browne and Ramkissoon, the other defendants listed in the application are Attorney General Anil Nandlall SC and House Speaker Manzoor Nadir.
Responding to submissions the Speaker has made, Jones said that he (Nadir) failed to recognize that members of the successful lists are constitutionally recognised as elected members before the date of allocation, extraction or selection of persons to sit in the National Assembly by the representative of the List, and in so doing failed to have regard to case law authority on the issue.
On this point, Jones referenced the case of Desmond Morian v. Attorney General, where the Court said, “It is clear from Article 160 (1) (c) that the seats of the National Assembly are not allocated to specific persons but to the successful lists of candidates cumulatively. It is further clear that members of such successful lists are constitutionally recognised as “elected members” even before the stage of allocation between those successful lists is reached – let alone extraction (or selection) is made by the representatives of such lists after such allocation of seats between or among the successful lists.”
Jones then submitted that an Elected Member of the National Assembly not extracted from the List of Candidates, “cannot become a non-elected Member of the National Assembly by virtue of their appointment as Parliamentary Secretary.”
Jones (the Applicant) reasoned that much turns on the fact that Browne and Ramkissoon were not extracted from the List of candidates of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) to be the holders of any of the 33 seats that those Candidates have in the National Assembly.
There is no provision in the Constitution which permits it, he says.
Jones said the Speaker had submitted that the crucial question was why Parliament would pass an amendment limiting appointments of Parliamentary Secretaries from outside the List in order to ensure that members of the Assembly are more reflective of the List from whom they voted and by the very provisions, exclude Parliamentary Secretaries appointed from the List of Candidates from being members of the Assembly but then include those appointed from outside the List.
Jones said the Speaker submitted that Parliament could not have so intended.
According to the Applicant, the Speaker’s statements are fallacious since, firstly, the amendment, while seeking to limit the number of Parliamentary Secretaries who can be appointed from outside the List did not exclude or limit Parliamentary Secretaries from being appointed from the List notwithstanding their names were not extracted from the List of Candidates; or Persons who are named on the List of Candidates and who were extracted from the said List to be Members of the National Assembly from being appointed as Parliamentary Secretaries.
The Amendment did not affect or prohibit the persons extracted from the List of Candidates and thereby those entitled to sit and vote in the National Assembly from being appointed Parliamentary Secretaries, Jones said, while adding that there is no limit on the number of such persons extracted from the List who can be appointed Parliamentary Secretaries.
He goes on to contend that the amendment also did not restrict in any way, the right of the President to appoint an unlimited number of persons who were on the List of Candidates, but not extracted from being appointed Parliamentary Secretaries.
“Simply, however, such persons could not sit in the National Assembly,” Jones says.
Jones asserted that to date Browne and Ramkissoon continue to be members of the National Assembly and Parliamentary Secretaries to Ministers of the Government in breach of the Constitution, and says he demands compliance with the Constitution.
Jones is being represented by a battery of attorneys led by Senior Counsel Roysdale Forde.
