The implementation of the process of consultation required of the President under Guyana’s Constitution has been one of the most controversial constitutional issues since Independence. During the later years of President Burnham’s rule, consultation had degenerated into a perfunctory telephone call to the then Leader of the Minority. After 1985 when President Hoyte assumed office, consultation improved but still consisted of only a meeting at which names were proposed for constitutional offices to which the Leader of the Minority was given the opportunity to accept or reject there and then. This pattern has continued until the present.
Consultation in the most basic circumstances, even in family matters, could never mean less than a process of discourse,
