Stabroek News
June 11, 2001

The controversial proviso to the agreed amendment to Article 127 of the Constitution will be one of the main items on the agenda when President Bharrat Jagdeo and PNC REFORM leader, Desmond Hoyte, resume their dialogue today.

The two leaders should have met on Thursday but the meeting was re-scheduled for today.

The discussion on the issue is likely to be the first real test in their dialogue as the PNC/R chairman, Robert Corbin, and Chief Whip, Lance Carberry, have publicly stated that the party's position that the proviso should be withdrawn was non-negotiable.

Hoyte wrote President Jagdeo on Wednesday expressing disappointment with the PPP/Civic's unilateral inclusion of a proviso to the amendment of article 127 which requires agreement between the President and Leader of the Opposition on the appointments of Chancellor of the Judiciary and Chief Justice. Hoyte called the inclusion of the proviso a "grave breach of faith and of trust."

The proviso would allow the President unilaterally to decide on the appointments of the two top legal officers if, after the passage of two months, no agreement between himself and the Leader of the Opposition were forthcoming.

Hoyte requested that the proviso to the amendment be withdrawn, indicating that if it was not his party would withhold its support for the constitutional legislation which requires a two-thirds majority for its enactment. Last week when the bill was due for its second reading, Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Reepu Daman Persaud, moved that the sitting be adjourned to this week to allow for consultations between the parties. The other legislation dealing with constitutional amendments down for discussion were also deferred. These too required a qualified majority to be enacted.

The amendment was based on a recommendation from the Parliamentary Oversight Committee which was unanimously approved by the National Assembly during the last parliament.

Stabroek News understands that there was no proviso in the draft legislation which was sent to the PNC/R but it was included in the bill tabled on May 31 that was to have had its second reading on Thursday last.

Hoyte in his letter also expressed disappointment that the government had not tabled all the outstanding constitutional amendments to allow them to be approved by parliament within a month of its first sitting on May 4. President Jagdeo and Hoyte had agreed at their first meeting on April 24 that the outstanding legislation would have been approved within a month of the parliament being convened.

Among the amendments in the bill which was deferred were provisions to raise the age of retirement from 65 to 68 for judges of the Court of Appeal and from 62 to 65 for the other judges; removing the power of the President to extend the tenure of judges; calling on the State to provide such pay and conditions of service that would remove the need for judges to return to the Bar to practise after retirement; and extending the definition of judicial misconduct to include the failure to write decisions within a period specified by parliament.

Other amendments too address the securing of the independence of the Office of the Auditor General by putting it under the general supervision of the Public Accounts Committee.

Among the bills that were deferred were amendments to Article 197 to include a reiteration of the duties of the Guyana Defence Force and the Police Force and to provide for the establishment of a Disciplined Forces Commission as necessary "to examine the composition and structure of the disciplined forces to give effect to the need for the composition of the disciplined forces to take account of the ethnic constituents of the population."

The Constitution (Amendment) (No 6) Bill included amendments which would provide for the establishment of parliamentary standing committees on natural resources, economic services, foreign relations and social services. There is also a provision for the establishment of a Parliamentary Standing Committee on Constitutional Reform to "continually review the working of the Constitution with a view to making proposals for reform."