The Constitutional reform promised by the APNU/AFC coalition in its 2015 elections Manifesto has since turned out to be a paradigmatic example of foot-dragging. For years before the elections, both parties had protested the long PPP control of the Executive, and had demanded constitutional change to accommodate changes that would “make governance more democratic”.
It is now clear that while their appetite for those changes has disappeared upon their assumption of office, the parties still want to maintain the illusion that they are fulfilling their promise. But this is a very cynical game, and it only serves to undermine the legitimacy of our Constitution as the Supreme Law of the land.
If the clearly identified changes demanded by APNU/AFC, such as Executive power sharing, were necessary before the elections to improve our form and substance of government and governance, why are they now being delayed? After all, in the meantime, Guyana is being governed by laws that have been identified by the government of the day as being, at a minimum, inappropriate for our circumstances, and therefore not really deserving of our compliance.
The post-elections history of the PNC-led coalition Government on the constitutional reform promise makes for very depressing reading. They established, with great fanfare, a “Steering Committee for Constitutional Reform” (SCCR) in September 2015, which held extensive hearings and took submissions from the populace at large. These were summarised and submitted to Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo in April 2016. He, in turn, submitted the Report to Cabinet, which had a “Constitutional Reform Consultative Commission Bill” drafted, then further “deliberated” on it. The Report then seemed to have disappeared into a Black Hole, where we are informed no information can exit.
The only hint of the status of the Constitutional Reform Process was a cryptic comment by President David Granger, in June 2016, implicitly criticising the SSCR’s methodology when he claimed Constitutional Reform should not come from individuals “sitting in a room”. He opined: “We need to go to the people, find out what the people think; we need to have consultation and we need to listen to them.”
However, cognisant of this need for wide legitimacy, the SSCR had already recommended a detailed, wide-ranging process to effectuate Constitutional change. Initially, the Parliamentary Standing Constitutional Reform Commission (CRC) would have worked with legal experts to prepare a draft of the proposed changes. After circulating this document to the political parties and the widest possible array of Civil Society organisations, the CRC would have been expanded by representatives of these groups, and they would, in turn, repeat the earlier process. Their report would then be submitted to the National Assembly for debate and ultimate ratification by one of the methods included in the present constitution, most likely a referendum.
PM Nagamootoo duly requisitioned $80M in November 2016 for wider consultations. So it was with some surprise that, on February 8th 2017, Guyanese learnt that a UNDP Mission was in Guyana at the request of Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo to “(i) assess the political environment in Guyana and the legal and institutional framework governing the constitutional reform process; (ii) review past reform processes; (iii) evaluate the interest, capacity and roles of the various civil and political stakeholders in engaging in the constitutional reform process; and (iv) assess the potential role of UNDP-UNDPA in assisting this process and resources required.”
But the UNDP team came, met, and then departed without their assessment being made public, or the public being consulted, as President Granger had demanded.
Then, this weekend, it was announced that the Carter Center Guyana will host a symposium with the theme ‘Perspectives on Guyana’s Constitutional Reform Process’ on Friday, March 31, at the UG Turkeyen Campus. It is our sincere hope that since this is an event funded by the British High Commission and hosted by an eminent US NGO, the participants will include, in their disquisitions, comments on the Government’s lassitude on Constitutional Reform.
