Dear Editor,
About one and a half years after the PPP got into power, I reminded Dr Jagan that one of the promises
he had made in 1992 was to reduce the powers of the president. I went on to ask him why up to that time he had made no effort to amend at least that part of the Constitution. His unbelievable response was, “It depends on who is president.”
Which leads me to agree with GHK Lall who said that honest as he is, he wouldn’t trust his own self near the Constitution. After all, if Cheddi Jagan could not be trusted with it, whom could we trust now?
My own thoughts on our Constitution is that it was foisted on us, a fait accompli. There was no prior consultation with the people. I therefore do not support any move to tinker with it – it should be scrapped and replaced with one that is the result of extensive consultation of the people. The only permissible tinkering should be to specifically and immediately reduce the powers of the president.
When Nelson Mandela became president of South Africa, he gave two clear instructions to a group of young lawyers drafting the Constitution: First, that there had to be widespread public participation; and second, because he saw it as an instrument to be owned by the people, it should be written in simple language that those people could understand – what was later referred to as “accessible language.” Today, South Africa’s Constitution is “widely regarded as the most progressive Constitution in the world” and “with a bill of rights second to none.”
I therefore commend this model for the immediate consideration of the post-election government. The next government has to rise above platform chatter. We need to have a new Constitution not later than April 2016 (South Africa took two years), and it must reflect the collective will of our people.
Yours faithfully,
Clairmont Lye
