No reply yet to request for final ruling on budget cuts – AG

Government is still awaiting a formal response from the acting Chief Justice Ian Chang on a request for a final ruling on last year’s budget cuts, but is optimistic that a hearing would soon be set in the case.

Attorney General Anil Nandlall maintains that the ruling may conflict with the recent decision by Speaker Raphael Trotman to uphold the National Assembly’s authority to reduce the budget, while the opposition says it does not share that position.

Trotman last Tuesday ruled that the National Assembly had the authority to amend the budget, departing from the findings of Justice Chang’s preliminary ruling last July.

Although government contended that an interim court ruling on cuts that were made last year had established that the National Assembly could only pass the budget or reject it in its entirety, Trotman said it could not be bound by a “preliminary” decision.

Nandlall, who last week said he had written to Justice Chang about the need for a final ruling, told Stabroek News that while he has not received a response from the Chief Justice, “my staff made contact with his staff and they were told that instructions were given to comply with the necessary legal requirements so that the matter could be fixed for hearing.”

He added that he presumes that a fixture for a date will be made soon and expressed hope that this does happen. “I do not control the pace at which the judiciary functions and therefore I am at the behest of the judiciary in this respect. I also have no doubt that all sides in this matter would welcome an early hearing,” he said.

Asked about the manner of his approaching Justice Chang with the request, Nandlall said the writing of a letter was in keeping with the law. “I made a request for hearing as is required by the rules of the court. That by itself does not necessarily give you an early hearing because there are thousands of cases there, where such a request would have been filed,” he said.

It is as a result of the situation in the courts, he said, that lawyers would normally write letters explaining the special urgency of a particular case, “to establish that that particular case has some importance which makes it a case of exceptional importance.”

In those circumstances, he added, the judge is asked for his indulgence of an early hearing. “I did all of that,” he said.

Last April, the opposition effected $20 billion in cuts from the government’s budget, citing a lack of transparency and accountability in the explanations for the allocations. Nandlall subsequently moved to the courts and Justice Chang in an interim ruling said that the National Assembly did not have the power to cut the budget but the court could not restore the funding sought by government, except for allocations to the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC) which is a constitutional agency and entitled to draw directly from the Consolidated Fund.

Ahead of budget day last month, AFC leader Khemraj Ramjattan had told this newspaper that his party planned to proceed as it did last year and make amendments. “We intend to hold on to our position that we can cut the budget, we can amend it, we can reduce line items,” he had said.

Trotman’s decision came after almost five hours of arguments last Monday upon a Motion submitted by Ramjattan, in which he proposed more than $35 billion in cuts to various sectors.

“The National Assembly of the Parliament of Guyana has the power to amend, by reducing only, the Estimates of Expenditure submitted by the Minister responsible for Finance,” Trotman ruled the next day.

“The political system practiced in Guyana does not negative the authority of the National Assembly to amend Bills and Motions, including those dealing with public finance,” he added, though he cautioned that the power to amend cannot be “used, injudiciously, whimsically, and/or wantonly.”

Trotman also pointed out that those who gave and those who received the instruments of independence could never have intended that such a hallowed right and privilege of the National Assembly to “amend” estimates would be usurped, surrendered, or so given up. Correspondingly, he noted, such an important right must be used responsibly.

No jurisdiction

Meanwhile, Ramjattan told Stabroek News that he disagreed with Nandlall’s assertion that the final ruling of the court will conflict with Trotman’s ruling. “Not necessarily, because there might be some additional arguments that can very well sway him into the position that the Speaker took,” he said.

He said he was pleased that the Attorney General has written to Justice Chang. “I am hoping that indeed the Chief Justice is going to give us some directions as to how we move forward, so that we can get a final ruling,” Ramjattan said, while adding that he also believes that there should be a final date so that this issue can be resolved.

When asked if the government should have pressed for a final ruling before now, Ramjattan while agreeing said that he firmly believes that the letter was sparked by the Speaker’s ruling.

“I rather suspect now that the letter was written in view of the Speaker making his ruling… That has triggered them to do what they are doing and also if it wasn’t the Speaker’s ruling, at least [it was] our proposed cuts for this year,” he added.

Meanwhile, APNU Leader David Granger also expressed similar views with Ramjattan. “My position is that it will not collide because the Speaker has already stated clearly that the court has no jurisdiction/ authority to interfere in the internal workings of the National Assembly and we are sticking to that.”

He said that he thought that the Speaker’s ruling was quite clear and while noting that APNU did not feel that there is room for justification, they will “have to wait and see what the court will do.”

Granger told Stabroek News that he “cannot anticipate what the Chief Justice will say but from what has been researched and what has been published and what has been accepted by the National Assembly, I do not see that there will be any collision between anything that the Chief Justice would say and what the Speaker had already stated. So, we are very confident that the ruling of Tuesday is a definitive ruling and we will continue to work on that basis.”