Dear Editor,
I must confess that while I do periodically read Mr Bisram’s writings in this space, I am increasingly at the dilemma where I fail to see the constructive nature of his arguments. In his recent letter on constitutional reform, again – after a critique on local action, or rather inaction as he seems to believe – goes on the myriad comparisons of other systems which he views as better than ours. Now I must be clear in that I am in no way saying that Guyana has the best system of governance, rather my issue is with the amateurish comparisons of very distinct constitutional structures.
The first point Mr Bisram made was that the current Constitution – which evolved from the ‘Burnham constitution’ is unacceptable because it was not approved by the population. The notion that constitutions must be approved by the people at a physical referendum to be acceptable is an idyllic dream. While that is the best case scenario, the absence of popular approval of constitutional instruments does not equate to those instruments being unacceptable. As a former British colony with a modified Westminster system, it is prudent to look at other commonwealth countries. Many constitutions today were derived from Independence Acts and Orders-in-Council, hardly any of those being adopted by referendum, with the closest example to us being Trinidad and Tobago. Mr Bisram would no doubt counter with examples of India and the US. He would have to understand that the circumstances existing in India in 1950 made popular approval of a Constitution a matter of routine nature, where still it was a constituent assembly that drafted the Constitution from local suggestions. The US is not a good example because as a teacher, Mr Bisram would know that at the time the US Constitution was ratified, the franchise was severely limited and excluded, among other groups, slaves, former slaves, and women.
Mr Bisram’s next point is the nature of the new constitutional arrangement. Again, citing the US, he calls for a directly elected President (either by the people or the National Assembly), shared Government where various parties control different Ministries, capping of presidential powers and the like. In response to this, I must elucidate the following:
1. The President of the US is not directly elected. Constitutionally, the President is elected by the Electoral College which is under no legal obligation to follow the ‘vote’ which occurs in November.
2. The President of Guyana in comparison is more directly elected in a sense because when people cast their vote, they are voting for a list, including a person identified as presidential candidate. While some may rightly say that this is technically an indirect election, it is clear that each individual vote goes into electing the President as it does the National Assembly. In fact, I would remind Mr Bisram that even the Prime Ministers of Canada, Australia, and the UK (who are heads of government much like our President) are not directly elected to that position. Rather they are appointed, and in the same way we know who is designated by a party to become President, the same way voters in those countries know who will be appointed Prime Minister if a particular party wins.
3. It is actually the National Assembly that is not purely representative as we lack the basic constituency system of electing MPs as in Canada, UK, and many of our Caribbean neighbours. Our MPs can be replaced by the political parties without our say, which in turn defeats the nature of a representative body.
4. No other ‘developed’ country has the system Mr Bisram is calling for, yet they function properly. That is because the institutions to secure the individual vote are strong. Why can multicultural Trinidad and Tobago have smooth transfer of power and we can’t. It’s not because they have the system that Mr Bisram advocates for, but rather because the institutions that protect the integrity of the vote works better than it does here.
I can keep on listing points but I shall stop here. Maybe Mr Bisram has forgotten but we did have extensive constitutional reforms in the early 90s. Sure more could have been done, but there were significant changes that came about including the increased participation of the Opposition Leader in various constitutional mechanisms and the limiting of Executive power. Further to that, Mr Bisram should be reminded that up till the court (in exercising judicial review of a law) struck the provision down, we did have term limits signed into office by a sitting President, popular enough to take his party into more election cycles.
At the end of the letter, the issue of race is brought up. I’m not going to argue on this, but in almost every letter of this nature, Mr Bisram hints at race when it helps his arguments. By taking a constitutional issue and painting it lastly with the race brush, Mr Bisram has defeated any well intentioned thoughts in his own letter. Do we struggle with race – yes, of course. But that is not the answer to the issue Mr Bisram raises. We can have the best and most inclusive Government on paper which will mean nothing without political maturity from everyone. And at the end of the day, that is what’s needed – political maturity.
Sincerely,
Hemsworth J Carter
