Still to be paid court costs they were awarded after the High Court ruled in their favour dismissing the challenge to the passage of the Natural Resource Fund (NRF) Bill; Speaker of the National Assembly, its Clerk and the Parliament Office have threatened legal action.
Through attorney Sase Gunraj, they are pursuing Opposition Chief Whip Christopher Jones and trade unionist Norris Witter by whom the action had been filed; for the $750,000 collectively awarded to them.
Gunraj in a statement to the press said that since Justice Navindra Singh’s order of June 19th, 2023 that costs be paid, neither Jones nor Witter have complied.
Demanding the payment, the lawyer said that his clients are giving the duo no later than today to pay up, failing which legal proceedings will be instituted to recover the sum.
Justice Singh had awarded the Speaker, Clerk and Parliament Office; who were among the Defendants to the action; costs in the sum of $250,000 each which is to be borne by Jones Witter.
Declaring that “the presence, absence or use of the Mace in the National Assembly is not provided for in the Constitution or the Laws of Guyana,” Justice Singh dismissed the entire case brought by the opposition, in its challenge to the December 2021 passage of the Natural Resource Fund (NRF) Bill.
He had said its significance was clearly only “symbolic,” even as he underscored that it was just a “length of metal” incapable of grounding any legitimacy of acts done by elected representatives of the country.
The Opposition’s main contention had been that because the ceremonial Mace was not in place at the time the vote was taken, the Bill could not be regarded as having been validly passed.
During a chaotic session that saw upheaval in the parliamentary chamber on December 29th, 2021, opposition APNU+AFC MPs, in a failed bid to derail the passage of the Bill, attempted to seize the ceremonial Mace—the symbol of authority in the House.
In the midst of the mayhem, a replica Mace was brought in, but the Opposition was adamant that in the absence of the authentic Mace, the Bill could not have been lawfully passed. They argued too, that members were required to be seated during the voting process.
In his ruling throwing out the case, Justice Singh said among other things that it was clear from the evidence that “the Mace is nothing more than a relic, intended only to be [of] symbolic existence in the National Assembly.”
