Chairman of a previous Constitutional Reform Commission (CRC), Ralph Ramkarran SC on Sunday said that the current CRC process should be scrapped and core issues such as presidential powers and inclusive governance addressed.
Also a former speaker of the National Assembly, Ramkarran said that the mandate of the current process was mostly a replication of the 1999 process and therefore a better plan would have been to evaluate that constitutional reform process and then formulate the way forward.
“While some bodies have not been established, others are not functioning either at all or optimally and many recommendations have not been implemented,” Ramkarran wrote in his Sunday Stabroek column.
He said this begs the question; “Is the current CRC going to merely revise and/or second guess the work of the CRC of 1999? If so, is a CRC required at all? An inquiry into the adequacy of the 1999 reforms, and their efficacy, would have been more appropriate. Since the work the CRC 2022 is required to do has already been done by the CRC 1999, the current constitutional reform process should be scrapped or amended to deal with the real issues that have troubled Guyanese since at least 1980.”
He reflected on the coming into being of the 1980 constitution, which gave the executive president wide ranging powers and immunities, most of which have been retained.
Ramkarran said that “no matter how much the government and others try to sell the 1980 constitution as being one of the best in the world, although substantially amended, it is regarded by many Guyanese to be irretrievably tainted because it was a fraudulent imposition on the Guyanese people by a dictatorial PNC government through a dictatorial process which never had the support of the Guyanese people.
“It was in 1980, the year the constitution was imposed, that Walter Rodney, a prominent leader of the 1979 struggle, was assassinated. Many see the 1980 constitution as a tainted document which should be completely scrapped. A new constitution in simple language, as proposed by the PPP/C’s manifesto, could take its place.
“There are then two fundamental issues that constitution reform has to address by popular demand since 1980, namely, the powers of the president and a national, inclusive, governance model as promised in the PPP/C’s elections manifesto,” he added.
During the reforms under the previous PPP/C government, he noted, several constitutionally enshrined rights commissions were introduced.
Pointing to an advertisement last week for a secretary for the CRC, Ramkarran said that it has reminded the public that constitution reform is again on the agenda. “The CRC was appointed on 3 April 2024. Elections in Guyana are due on or before 2 November 2025. The delay so far does not suggest that the CRC will be in a position to commence its first hearing before 2025 has begun, or is about to begin. Preparations for the elections campaign will also be about to begin and by the time the work of the CRC is in high gear, so will be the elections campaign. Few would be interested in constitutional reform,” he said.
The CRC would have another problem, he believes as the agenda has been set by the CRC Act 2022, which provides that it must take into account: fundamental rights; rights of indigenous people; rights of children; eliminating discrimination; improving race relations and ethnic security and equal opportunity; ensuring that the views of minorities in decision-making and in governing are given due consideration; reforms to elections and the Elections Commission and the method of electing the chair and members; protecting the economic, social and cultural rights of Guyanese; methods to maintain and strengthen the independence of the judiciary; measures to safeguard public funds and maintain and enhance integrity in public life; measures to enhance the functioning, capacity and effectiveness of the National Assembly; the functioning, capacity and effectiveness of the local government system.
He said that the CRC Act 2022 proposes an agenda which is identical to that provided by the CRC Act 1999.
“Not only are the functions of the current CRC 2022 the same as those of the CRC of 1999, but they are set out in the same sequence and expressed in language so identical that the suggestion that they have been the subject of wholesale plagiarising is inescapable,” he added.
Ramkarran said that the Report of the CRC, which was presented to the National Assembly, and later unanimously adopted, gave rise to a series of constitutional amendments mainly in 2001 to give effect to the recommendations. “Among the bodies established, although these are only some of the measures adopted are: the Ethnic Relations Commission, the Human Rights Commission (which has never been established), the Women and Gender Equality Commission, the Indigenous Peoples Commission, the Rights of the Child Commission, the Public Procurement Commission, five standing parliamentary committees, financial independence for the judiciary and several other bodies, Article 13 on participation in the decision-making process and the establishment of an inclusionary democracy and several others, including reform of the electoral system,” he noted.
In November 2022, the Bill was passed with the expectation that the government would move swiftly to begin the constitutional reform process.
Some 18 of the 21-member commission were sworn in last April. Former chancellor of the judiciary, retired Justice Carl Singh was named Chairman. Others were PPP members: Anil Nandlall, Gail Teixeira, Dr Frank Anthony, Pauline Campbell-Sukhai and Kwame McCoy; and APNU+AFC members Vincent Alexander, Sherwood Lowe, Ganesh Mahipaul and Nigel Hughes. Aslim Singh of the Labour Movement, Chairman of the National Toshaos’ Council Derrick Rowan John, private sector representative Ramesh Persaud, representative of women’s organisations Dr Kim Kyte-Thomas, Chairman of the Youth Advisory Council Dr Josh Kanhai, Imran Ally of the Muslim Youth Organization; farmers representative Adrian Anamayah and representative of the Hindu community Radha Krishna Sharma were also sworn in April. Then in late May, A New and United Guyana member, Timothy Jonas SC as representative of the joinder parties in parliament; representative of the Christian community, Keoma Griffith and representative of the Guyana Bar Association, Kamal Ramkarran took their oaths of office.
President Irfaan Ali had said at the swearing in of the last three members, “It is important to understand where our society is today as to the type of society the population and the environment in which we operate in as a country will be operating 20, 30, 40 years from now.
“Constitutional reform and law reform are things that aren’t taken lightly that you can do every year or every four or five years that is why members of these commissions must be very forward looking,” he added.
Ali said that the organisations needed to “self-reflect” the weight placed on them.
