By virtue of his decisive ruling on the question of whether there should be any restraint on the participation by the Minister of Home Affairs in the activities of Parliament, the Speaker of the National Assembly Mr Raphael Trotman has made two important declarations. The first is that any matter pertaining to the rights of members of Parliament in the House and its procedures is well within his bailiwick and can be decided by him upon examining Commonwealth precedents, parliamentary best practice and honouring the fundamental precepts of the constitution. Secondly, he made it unmistakably clear that the legislature will brook no interference by the courts in its business when he stated “It is apparent to me that I must uphold the Constitution of Guyana in interpreting this issue. The exercise of my duty should not be interfered with, or fettered, by the Courts, or be determined by the outcome of the issue before the Courts”.
In relation to the first declaration, one wonders why it took so long for Speaker Trotman to arrive at the conviction that it was in his remit to ponder and deliver a final decision on this matter. Since July last year, ever since the opposition embarked on its no-confidence campaign against Mr Clement Rohee, the important business of the National Assembly has been reduced to a sideshow while MPs on all sides exhibited the worst forms of behaviour. In the meantime, the Speaker appeared unsure of himself and sent a variety of mixed signals. Initially ruling in November in favour of Mr Rohee speaking following the lengthy parliamentary recess, the Speaker himself then suggested that a substantive motion on the same matter could be brought by the Opposition Leader. This, no doubt, signalled to the opposition that there was still wiggle room for the sanctioning of Mr Rohee. The substantive motion duly followed and after passage by the opposition majority, the Speaker constricted Minister Rohee’s role in Parliament and referred the matter to the Privileges Committee for final ruling. He then stayed that process to await the verdict of the court and when the interim ruling by Chief Justice Chang appeared to leave questions unanswered, Mr Trotman stated that he would instruct “lawyers representing the Speaker to file an appeal to the Court of Appeal to seek further clarifications only on the issue of the powers and authority of the High Court vis-à-vis the National Assembly”. In the meantime the Committee of Privileges met at which point the Speaker said he was increasingly of the view that Minister Rohee could not be constrained from speaking but that the political parties preferred to await the final ruling from Justice Chang’s court. That final ruling is yet to be delivered but Speaker Trotman has now issued his own decision.
The Speaker’s ruling is final. But if as Mr Trotman himself said in the opening sentence of his decision that the matter was a simple one made complex – presumably by the MPs under his control – why did it take him to the end of February to put this most disruptive and enervating issue to rest? It was perhaps a combination of inexperience, diffidence, over analysis and too many well-meaning opinions from a variety of sources. The lesson that Speaker Trotman will undoubtedly draw from the months of internecine skirmishing among MPs is that he needs to take effective and immediate control of parliamentary crises. Surely, if he was inclined to give a final ruling at the very outset on the effect and impact of the July motion of no-confidence against Minister Rohee all that was required was one week of arguments by both sides in his Chambers or in the full House accompanied by legal briefs and then he could have deliberated on the matter over the parliamentary recess and rendered his final ruling at the first sitting on resumption. Case closed and the business of Parliament would have proceeded in a different direction.
The second declaration speaks to the fundamental doctrine of the separation of powers; in this case between the legislature and the judiciary. It must be said that it was Speaker Trotman who initially caused a blurring of these lines by staying the Committee of Privileges deliberation until the ruling of the court. That decision invited trespass on the jurisdiction of the legislature when as he now states he was prepared to defend the Constitution and to exercise his parliamentary duties without any intrusions by the court. It must be said that the Chief Justice in his interim ruling, while explicating on respect for the constitutional rights of Mr Rohee was solicitous of the legislature’s powers and cognizant of the judiciary’s incapacity to dictate to it. That is a signal lesson to AG Nandlall, in particular, as on behalf of the government he has rushed to the courts at the drop of a hat inviting its incursion into matters that properly fall within the mandate of the procedures of the House and the functions of the Speaker.
What of the opposition now? The ruling gives it an honourable way out of the corner it had backed itself into after not having worked out the end game of the no-confidence motion. With no pathway to forcing the resignation of a minister the opposition should have realized that there was no way the government or Mr Rohee would acquiesce to the no-confidence gambit. To do so would be to invite a series of other forays that the weakened minority government would not countenance. A motion of no confidence was perfectly in order and Minister Rohee was an eminently suitable subject. However that’s where the matter should have rested without prejudice to other measures still available to the opposition such as exiting the assembly when he spoke and voting down superfluous and unacceptable motions or bills presented.
With Minister Rohee’s poor track record in Home Affairs there is ample room for the opposition to bring him to account for the failings in his ministry and to demand explanations. His hurriedly put together reforms announced on the last day of 2012, which were needed 20 years ago and may not be effective as they avoid root and branch transformation, provide the opposition with numerous opportunities to seek results and to continue to pressure the government to recall him if his performance does not improve. And the evidence is everywhere. Contract killings go on with impunity, huge drug shipments are barely intercepted and large amounts of gold are smuggled out of the country without any viable charges and prosecution. This is exactly the work of the legislature, to finely dissect the work of ministers and expose their failings to the public. This is the direction that the opposition should proceed in.
Enough time has been wasted on this Rohee business and both the governing and opposition benches must proceed with a substantial legislative agenda. An entire year has been frittered away. An opposition which should have been focused on the Access to Information Act, the Broadcast Act, the Guyana National Broadcasting Authority Act and local government legislation has virtually nothing to show for its efforts. Its intoxicating budget cuts have yielded no results and it is faced again with the same dilemma in a few weeks. What is its budget strategy and where is it legislative agenda? Does it intend to interface with the public on it? All eyes will now be on the Leader of the Opposition, Mr David Granger to discern the type of leadership he provides in the House.
The same can be said of the government benches. There is no defined legislative agenda and its entire focus all year has been to deny that it has lost control of the legislature because of public disaffection with its performance, fight off opposition initiatives solely for the sake of doing so, threaten not to assent to opposition-led bills and to rush to court in a manner that undermines the role of the legislature. It stands to lose the most from this recalcitrant and inane behaviour.
Where are well-developed initiatives on a living wage, unemployment, poverty, garbage, alcohol abuse, the welfare of the mentally ill on the streets, the plight of girls who leave school because of pregnancy, the continuing epidemic of domestic violence and illiteracy?
All sides in the House should be chastened by the last year’s experience and particularly the handling of the Rohee no-confidence motion. The public wants to see a results-oriented Parliament. Will they?
