The opposition APNU+AFC coalition says it is actively considering mounting a legal challenge to government’s “purported” passage of the controversial Natural Resource Fund (NRF) Bill.
This is according to Shadow Attorney General, Roysdale Forde SC who contends that the passage of the Bill “constitutes the rejection of participatory governance as recognized as part of the constitutional system of Guyana.”
In an invited comment, Forde told his newspaper that civil society has been rejected from having a critical and essential role in the governance of the country.
He told Stabroek News yesterday that “the feigned position of the Speaker [of the National Assembly] that the civil society group petition was only received the morning of the debate and could not be proceeded with, shows the government and the Speaker’s contempt for civil society.”
On this point he noted that the Opposition’s plans to mount a legal challenge to the purported passage of the Bill remain “under active consideration.”
It is the main Opposition’s view that the NRF Bill No. 20 of 2021, was not legally passed in the National Assembly because of the absence of the authentic Mace from the House and members not being seated during the voting process.
APNU+AFC MPs in a failed bid last Wednesday to derail the passage of the Bill attempted to seize the ceremonial Mace—the symbol of authority in the House.
At a press conference the day following the ruckus in the National Assembly, House Speaker Manzoor Nadir said that the Bill had been legally passed.
Opposition Member of Parliament Annette Ferguson, aided by a number of her APNU colleagues, snatched the Mace from its place on the Clerk’s desk in a bid to disrupt the passage of the Bill.
“First, the Mace which is the symbol of authority and which must be present throughout the deliberation and sittings of the Assembly when a law is to be passed, was not present. Secondly, the Standing Orders state that a Member of the Assembly must be in his or her seat to vote in the National Assembly. Most of the Government MPs and members of Parliament were out of their seats, especially the Prime Minister who was on his feet waving. It is clear that there was no legal vote carried tonight in the National Assembly,” Forde had said in a video statement.
He contended that the failure to adhere to those principles has rendered the passage of the bill null and void and of no legal effect.
But Nadir told the media “I want to make it pellucid that the bill was passed lawfully, legally last evening [last Wednesday] in the National Assembly…the Mace was in place. Shortly before I put the question on the Natural Resource Bill and it is there on the live feed, the recording, I called for members to take their seats because a person can only speak or vote from their seat. I kept monitoring and I noticed that they had almost all of the government members in their seats that was when I put the question. So let it be pellucid that the two ingredients necessary for the lawful passage of bills, motions, in the National Assembly was present. The Mace was in place and the vote was taken while members were in their seats, the majority of members were in their seats.”
Nadir’s contention is that a replica Mace was in place at the time the vote was taken. He further explained that the Mace used at the sitting at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre was an exact replica of the original Mace presented to the National Assembly at the time of independence. The Speaker added that almost all Parliaments in the Westminster System have two Maces in the advent of one not being found or stolen.
Forde is, however, calling on the Speaker to produce a list of the MPs whose votes were counted. “If you are voting, then you must be in your seat, so the Speaker would have to indicate where the MPs were, and who the MPs were that voted in favour of the Bill,” Forde has advanced.
Forde has argued that the Mace was not in place at the time the vote was taken and that a replica could not suffice.
The Opposition and a range of civil society voices had been calling for the Bill, which has now repealed the Natural Resource Fund Act of 2019, to be sent to a special select committee for debate and consultations.
Ignoring those mounting calls and even the in-House protest from the Opposition to send the Bill to such a Committee, however, the PPP/C Government blazed ahead with the passage of the controversial legislation.
