The articulation of the essence of a democratic form of governance goes back to antiquity, and is summarised in the Latin phrase “audiatur et altera pars” — the other side must be heard — as a fundamental requisite for due process. It recognises the ineluctable challenge of “government for the people, by the people and of the people” lies in the need for governmental acts to be given legitimacy by “all” the people, even though the Government in question would never obtain the votes of all the people. There will always be an “other side”.
When, as in Guyana, that “other side” is almost equal in size to the Government, the need for legitimisation of governmental actions becomes even more pressing.
On Thursday evening, one of the most contentious of bills ever to be presented before the National Assembly — the STATE ASSETS RECOVERY BILL 2017 — was debated. This Bill had been criticised not only by the PPP in Opposition, but by the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA), the Private Sector Commission, and a wide array of public commentators. Yet, the PNC-led APNU/AFC Administration shut down the debate before several major speakers of the Opposition had an opportunity to speak.
It was not surprising that the Opposition speakers walked out before the vote was taken, since to do otherwise would have been to be complicit in the decimation of democracy in Guyana. They signalled their intention to challenge the Bill in court — as they very well should — since the Government refused to take into consideration the aforementioned criticisms when they passed the Bill with only four innocuous changes to its 107 sections.
Each action must be considered within its particular context, and all of the criticisms centre around the Government’s refusal to address the fears of the people about the draconian powers given to named officers in the Bill in the context of our tragic experience with authoritarianism in Guyana. While most critics have honed in on the powers given to the Director of SARA, that last section — which concerns the subject minister — serves to illustrate the danger: “107(1) The Minister may make regulations for the better carrying out of the provisions of this Act and for prescribing anything that needs to be prescribed under this Act. (2) Regulations made under subsection (1) may provide for offences for breach of the Regulations, and the penalty for any of the offences shall be a fine of one million dollars and imprisonment for three years; and in the case of a body corporate, a fine of ten million dollars.” The circularity of the certainty of abuse boggles the mind.
As mentioned above, the major source of objections has been the Director of SARA, who just happens to be Clive Thomas, co-leader of the WPA — a party that has coalesced with the PNC to form APNU, the major player in the Government.
Just as pertinently, Thomas has spent the last decade developing an academic theory about Guyana having been transformed into a “criminalised state” by the PPP.
There have been numerous studies proving that, in such cases, when given the opportunity to prove their theories, a process called “confirmation bias” kicks in. As described by Wikipedia, “Experiments have found repeatedly that people tend to test hypotheses in a one-sided way, by searching for evidence consistent with their current hypothesis. Rather than searching through all the relevant evidence, they phrase questions to receive an affirmative answer that supports their theory. They look for the consequences that they would expect if their hypothesis were true, rather than what would happen if they were false.”
A further complication arises from one of Thomas’s advisors — Eric Philips — who, in addition to accepting his director’s thesis on the PPP’s “criminalised state”, is an executive of the African Cultural Development Association (ACDA), as is Thomas, and has insisted that mostly Indians have benefited from the “criminalised state”.
The GHRA has bemoaned SARA’s potential, as presently constituted, to inflame ethnic tensions. (to be continued)
