Leader of the Opposition Aubrey Norton is accusing President Irfaan Ali of being “disrespectful” and reneging on an agreement for a second meeting to discuss and agree to several appointments to various constitutional commissions.
The two leaders met for the first time on May 13, 2022, at the Office of the President after which a joint statement was issued by both parties which identified the areas discussed and the way forward.
The statement said that during the meeting, it was further agreed that the “consultations will be guided by the Constitution and the in-person consultations will resume on a date to be fixed, but within a week”.
However, no such meeting has been scheduled some two weeks later.
At a press conference today, the Opposition Leader was asked about preparations for the second meeting.
He said “First of all, I was saying let us meet in two weeks [for the second time]. The President said when I said two weeks, he said it is unrealistic [that two weeks is too long. He then said I think we could meet and we agreed that we can meet in seven days and that he will provide certain information.
“Now, in my opinion, the President is very disrespectful. They do not honour agreements. This is an agreement that was made between the Opposition and the President that we will meet in one week. Until now I have not heard from the President and I hope the President doesn’t believe that when he says he wants to meet, I will disrupt my schedule of meeting the people of Guyana doing my work just to meet with him.”
He further stated that the government cannot be trusted to keep its word, adding that the agreement has been violated without any explanation.
“The short answer is that I have not heard from the President and in my opinion, they are in breach of the very agreement they made that was put in the joint press statement. And so I don’t expect them to come to talk about the urgency of consulting because we have put in place a framework for urgent consultation and it has been violated by no other than the President himself,” Norton said.
At the first meeting, Norton requested that the curriculum vitae of proposed appointees for the various constitutional commission be provided for perusal prior to future discussions and President Ali has agreed to make those documents available to him.
Under the laws of this country, the President and the Opposition Leader must hold consultations, guided by the respective clauses, for the appointment of the Commissioner of Police, Chancellor of the Judiciary, and Chief Justice.
The PPP had, after Norton accused the President of consulting in bad faith, lashed out saying that the Leader of the Opposition was woefully unprepared for the meeting.
“Mr Norton was woefully unprepared for the meeting, despite being informed of the agenda and despite the fact that his own Coalition was involved in the Parliamentary process to arrive at the recommendations for the persons to be appointed to the Commissions, for example, the Police Service Commission (PSC),” the party had said in a statement.
On Wednesday, this newspaper reported Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, Gail Teixeira as saying that President Ali is not required to give reasons to justify his choices for the filling of constitutional posts. This was after she said that Norton was requesting justification for the names proposed for the commissions.
“Following the Friday, May 13 joint statement after the meeting between His Excellency [HE) and [the] LOP [Leader of the Opposition] the CVs of all of the names proposed by HE was delivered on May 16th at 9 am to Congress Place. To date no response [has been received] except Mr Norton’s recent comment in media [that] he was waiting for justification of those names.
“[The] Constitution does not require HE to do so. This is again LOP devising manufactured hurdles to delay the appointment of the Integrity Commission, the Judicial, Police and Teaching Service Commissions. HE is not required to furnish a justification why he chose certain names,” Teixeira had said.
Efforts yesterday to contact Teixeira to find out why the agreed meeting was not scheduled proved futile.