Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall has said that the government would more than likely be tabling the Constitutional Reform Bill when the National Assembly meets again on August 8.
During a brief comment to Sunday Stabroek, Nandlall related that the Parliamentary Standing Committee for Constitutional Reform met and agreed on the bill.
“The Opposition finally came and they basically agreed that the bill—one or two minor adjustments were suggested, which we took on board. So that bill is ready and will be laid in the National Assembly. I am hoping that this will be laid by the 8th August [but] it of course must get Cabinet’s approval. I do not see any difficulty in that regard because the bill is what we have promised in the manifesto,” he said.
The Committee is chaired by Nandlall and includes Minister of Education Priya Manickchand, Minister of Public Service Sonia Parag, Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport Charles Ramson Jr and parliamentarian Sanjeev Datadin from the government side of the National Assembly, and Aubrey Norton, Khemraj Ramjattan, Raphael Trotman, and Amanza Walton-Desir from the opposition side.
Nandlall has continually accused the opposition of not attending the meetings of the Committee.
Last month, after the opposition was a no-show, the Committee went ahead and proposed a broad-based Constitutional Reform Commission.
“I tabled the government’s proposal, which is that the government is submitting that this Constitutional Reform Commission be established by law, that the members are to be appointed by His Excellency the President, and that 50% of the membership shall come from the government side in the Parliament and the Opposition parliamentarians and the other 50 shall come from civil society organizations, including the labour movement, the Private Sector Commission, the religious organizations, Guyana Bar Association, farmers’ organizations, organizations representing women and organizations representing youth.
“The Chairperson of the Commission is to be appointed by the President in the exercise of his own deliberate judgment. Those basic provisions will begin to be crafted into a bill and then the other consequential provisions will be added to the bill to ensure that the Commission is able to discharge its mandate. The terms of reference will be established, the financing arrangements will be established in the bill as well as how the procedure of the Commission will unfold. Those issues will have to be decided upon in the Committee and of course taken to our respective principals for approval because the bill will be in draft form. Hopefully, we find consensus and we can push the process forward,” Nandlall had said earlier in June.
Yesterday, Ramjattan, who is the Leader of the Alliance For Change (AFC), told Sunday Stabroek that their position remains the same and that there is a precedence in relation to constitutional reform and the government must abide by it.
“The AFC’s position is, as it was some 12 weeks ago, on the bill is that we have gone through the process and there is a precedence. We want the bill to be passed and it have to go through the House. The wheel [of constitutional reform] has been invented and it is the government that is deliberately delaying this thing. They do not want it,” Ramjattan said.
He explained that he has continually told Nandlall that the bill must mirror that of the 2000 Act and if the government wants minor changes then when the bill is laid in Parliament those will be debated.
“The bill got to pass and that is what we are doing. My position and that of the AFC is that the bill have to pass and we have to pass it. I do not see why we have to discuss it so much in the Committee when we have told Nandlall that it must be exactly or with minor changes to the 2000 Act. He wants to discuss and discuss when in reality they do not want this thing. I have said that when the bill comes to the House and there are changes then we will discuss it there and that is it,” Ramjattan related.
“We support this and want it to move forward. Constitutional reform is determined by the stakeholders and when we have the bill then it would start consultations and we would know what the people want. We have to move the process forward and that is why we said that the bill should be exactly like the 2000 Act. They just have to say that we want constitutional reform and these are the procedures. That is all. They are the ones delaying this process,” he added.
Ramjattan said that the bill could have been tabled a long time ago if the government was serious about starting the process.
Sunday Stabroek attempted to contact Norton, who is Leader of the Opposition, to determine whether his party – APNU – holds the same view but those calls were unanswered.
