Under pressure over a contentious anti-terrorism bill, the government yesterday dropped plans to rush it through the National Assembly but two other bills were approved by the APNU+AFC side in the absence of the PPP/C whose parliamentarians walked out in protest.
An outcry by the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) as well as the business community and the PPP/C had greeted news that Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo was going to move a motion in the House to suspend the Standing Orders to allow the three bills to be laid, debated, and passed at yesterday’s sitting.
The bills were the Municipal and District Councils and Local Authorities (Amendment) Bill, the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (Amendment) Bill and the Anti-Terrorism and Terrorist Related Activities Bill.
The GHRA, in particular, had condemned the proposed move to suspend the Standing Orders saying that rushing the anti-terrorism bill through the House cannot be justified. “In its present state this Bill would allow the State to perpetrate serious violations of due process and fair trial rights and should not be allowed to pass into law,” it had declared.
PPP/C parliamentarians in the House yesterday wasted no time in condemning the move branding it a “travesty” and “undemocratic.”
Nagamootoo, following a lengthy defence of his motion to suspend the Standing Orders, said that he would amend the motion and drop the anti-terrorism bill to allow for more consultations.
“We agree after listening, reading some of the positions taken that more time is needed for civil organisations to study the…bill then we on this side would be prepared to oblige,” he said. “This is not a question of conceding to the superiority of a
