Editorial
Stabroek News
June 9, 2001

The decision unilaterally to make an addition to a clause in Article 127 of the Constitution (Amendment) (No. 4) Bill will not win the governing party any brownie points. The clause in question, requiring that the President only fill the posts of Chancellor of the Judiciary and Chief Justice after having first secured the agreement of the Leader of the Opposition on the appointments, had been through the mill of the Constitution Reform Commission, the Select Committee, and the Oversight Committee during the life of the last Parliament. There had been consensus at every stage, and there had been no hint that the Government was unhappy with the formulation of the provision before this.

It was somewhat perplexing, therefore, that the administration without consulting the other parliamentary parties should add a qualification of its own to the relevant clause in Article 127 which read: "Provided that if there is no agreement within two months the President shall make the appointments taking into consideration the views of the Leader of the Opposition."

It certainly did not require a lawyer or politician to divine that this new proviso defeated the whole intent of the original clause, since if there were no agreement between the President and Leader of the Opposition then all the President would have to do would be to wait for two months and then appoint whomsoever he liked.

All of this does not mean to say, of course, that the article as originally conceived was very practical. It was not. Mr Bryn Pollard had pointed out some time ago in the letter columns of this newspaper that an impasse was possible if the President and the Leader of the Opposition could not agree on the matter of the two judicial appointments. But that does not mean that the PPP/Civic was entitled to change the provision in the bill to their own advantage without any prior consultation with the Parliamentary parties in general, and the main opposition party in particular. That transgressed the spirit of constitutional reform, the spirit of the dialogue to which the party had committed itself, and its own public commitments to proceed in an inclusive and democratic manner.

As was to be expected, the PNC tabled a motion in the National Assembly to have the issue debated as a matter of urgent public importance, but mercifully, Mr Reepu Daman Persaud informed the House at the sitting on Thursday that the bill was being deferred to allow for consultations on the issue. The opposition had already made it known that if the governing party were to push ahead regardless, it would not support the constitutional amendment bill (no. 4) which requires a two-thirds majority in order to become law.

All of this was quite unnecessary. The administration has now been forced to discuss with the opposition any further amendments to Article 127 to cater for a gridlock situation before they go back to Parliament, when they could have and should have consulted voluntarily before they laid the bill in the National Assembly in the first place. At the very least it projects an image of poor judgement.

They have also fostered more suspicion about their commitment to inclusiveness in what is already a suspicious atmosphere, making a hard-line approach on the part of the opposition more, rather than less likely. And finally, by their miscalculation they have held up the passage of the long overdue constitutional reforms again.