Constitutional Reform Commission to commence work next year – AG Nandlall

Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister Anil Nandlall,SC, has said that, come next year, the Constitutional Reform Commission will be appointed, and will commence its work with public consultations across the country.

“Next year we will see the Constitutional Reform Commission appointed, and (it) will begin the important task of reforming our Constitution… The building has already been identified, it has already been equipped, and we will begin to put the operational infrastructure in place in terms of human resources at the Secretariat, etc,” Nandlall said during his weekly programme of Issues In The News.
The Attorney General reiterated that this Constitutional Reform Commission will not only be balanced, with political and civil society stakeholders, but will also be holding public consultations throughout the country.
“It’s not a politically-influenced Commission, but it has 50 per cent political membership and 50 per cent civil society membership. The 50 per cent political membership comes from the political parties in the Parliament, and other 50 per cent from civil society organisations. And their mandate is to go out there, hear the people, solicit their views, and to make recommendations in respect of reforming the Constitution. That important task will begin in earnest in 2023,” AG Nandlall noted.
The way was paved for the establishment of the Constitutional Reform Commission and the commencement of the reform process following the passage of the Constitutional Reform Commission Bill in the National Assembly last month.
Back in August of this year, the Government presented the Constitutional Reform Commission Bill 2022 in the National Assembly. That Bill seeks the establishment of a 20-member Constitutional Reform Commission to review the country’s supreme laws.
According to the provisions of the Bill, the commission will review the Constitution to provide for the current and future rights, duties, liabilities and obligations of the Guyanese people. It is mandated for that purpose to receive, consider, and evaluate submissions for the alteration of the Constitution, and report its recommendations to the Standing Committee for transmission to the National Assembly.
In conducting the review, the commission will also consider the full protection of the fundamental rights and freedoms of the Guyanese people under the law, the rights of Indigenous people of Guyana, the rights of children, eliminate discrimination in all forms, and improving ethnic relations while promoting ethnic security and equal opportunity.
However, when the Bill came up for debate on November 7 last, the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Opposition had staged a walkout of the sitting, after their request to have another issue raised was denied by the House Speaker. Nevertheless, the Coalition Opposition was heavily criticised for not making any contribution to the debates.
In fact, AG Nandlall, in whose name the Constitutional Reform Bill was laid, reminded that APNU/AFC had made numerous promises about constitutional reform.
“I hope that the people of this country are looking on and are seeing that we have made a promise and we are in the process of delivering on that promise. The other side made a similar promise a decade ago. From 2011 to 2015, though in Opposition, they controlled the National Assembly with a one-seat majority vote. They did nothing for constitutional reform,” Nandlall had said.
“From 2015 to 2020, they made compelling promises to the people of Guyana to start constitutional reform with great immediacy. Five years after, they did nothing. In the first half of the Irfaan Ali Government, this manifesto promise is halfway down the road. We cannot travel the other side, and I want the people of Guyana to understand that. I hope the empty benches to which I’m speaking is not a forbearing of what is to come in this process.”
The Bill was eventually passed, with only one member of the Opposition present, in the form of Deputy Speaker and Leader of the Liberty and Justice Party – one of the Joinder parties – Lenox Shuman.