Minister of Legal Affairs and Attorney General, Anil Nandlall, said Guyana could examine the mechanisms used to appoint a Chancellor of the Judiciary and Chief Justice in the upcoming countrywide consultation for constitutional reform.
According to a Department of Public Information (DPI) press release, the government will soon embark on widespread consultations on the reform process to upgrade archaic pieces of legislation embedded in the Guyana Constitution. The longstanding deadlock between any one sitting government and the opposition over the appointments of a Chancellor and a Chief Justice is one of the issues the government is hoping to remedy. The DPI release said that made these remarks while addressing a virtual panel on ‘Constitutional Reform and the Republic: The Judicial Selection Process in the Context of Administration of Justice and Democratic Strengthening’ on Sunday. The statement added that the Attorney General said Guyana has the extreme position where the appointments of the Chancellor and Chief Justice must be made by the head of the executive after consultations with the Leader of the Opposition. However, Nandlall reportedly said, ‘the system has not been working’.
The DPI release quoted Nandlall as saying, “Hopefully one of the provisions, which will be microscopically examined in this process, is the very article that speaks to the appointment of a Chancellor and a Chief Justice [and] hopefully we will get recommendations emanating out of the process which will find political consensus, because you know, you require two-thirds majority to change these provisions in the Constitution.” The DPI release noted that Guyana has been without a substantive Chancellor and Chief Justice for over two decades. Justice Desiree Bernard was the last confirmed Chancellor of the Judiciary before her ascension to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) in 2005, and Justice Carl Singh the last Chief Justice. Justices Yonette Cummings-Edwards and Roxane George were appointed in 2017 to act in the capacity of Chancellor and Chief Justice respectively by former President, David Granger.
In August, the government presented the Constitutional Reform Commission Bill 2022 to the National Assembly, an Act seeking to establish a Constitutional Reform Commission. The Commission will be responsible for the revision of the constitution to provide for current and future rights, duties, liabilities, and obligations of Guyanese. According to DPI, in June, Nandlall had complained against the members of the opposition, whose members, with one exception, absented themselves from a meeting from the standing committee for Constitutional Reform. Raphael Trotman was exempted because he attended the meeting virtually. Nandlall said, ‘Trotman… made no contribution to the meeting and left the zoom platform before the meeting was concluded’. Other members of the opposition had submitted excuses. The purpose of the meeting was to allow the opposition to make written submissions on the composition of the Constitutional Reform Commission.
In a recent exclusive interview with this newspaper President Irfan Ali when asked about the appointments had said “We don’t have a Judicial Service Com-mission [JSC] as yet. You can’t look at an entire judiciary without having a holistic solution. So let me say very clearly at the appropriate time, the matter of the Chancellor and the Chief Justice will be brought on the agenda. You have a chancellor. You have someone performing the duties of a chancellor right now. How do you think I was sworn in? Who swore the president in? It is the chancellor, the Acting Chancellor who swore to present. So I don’t know, it’s not like the country’s without a chancellor”.
Guyana has not had a confirmed Chancellor for 17 years.
There have been calls from several sections of society for the substantive appointments of Chancellor and Chief Justice, but successive governments have failed to do so.
In a letter dated May 12, 2022, and addressed to Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance Gail Teixeira, Leader of the Opposition Aubrey Norton signalled his intention to agree to confirm the appointment of the two justices as Chancellor and Chief Justice.
Ali was also told of the support pledged by the opposition APNU+AFC to support the appointments for substantive appointments to the post.
He said that “the opposition wants to be selective” in its giving of its support but that he will decide when the appointments will be made.
