-cites concerns about presidential assent to bills
Speaker of the National Assembly Raphael Trotman yesterday warned the Office of the President (OP) against provoking a constitutional crisis and argued that should President Donald Ramotar, without good reason, not assent to bills passed by Parliament “he can be considered to be in gross dereliction of his constitutional duty.”
The strong language yesterday from Trotman was a further sign of tension between the two branches of government and came in reply to Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr Roger Luncheon, who on Thursday restated the government’s position that bills passed via the opposition’s one-seat majority may not achieve the presidential assent necessary for them to become law.
Trotman’s statement also addressed concerns raised by PPP/C Chief Whip Gail Teixeira about the agenda for Monday’s sitting of the National Assembly–the first since the parliamentary recess ended.
Trotman deflected the government’s charge that he should not have allowed a number of opposition-piloted Bills on the Order Paper by arguing that that was a matter solely in the
