Gearing up
Editorial
The Constitution Reform Commission has been conducting a series of internal debates on a number of major issues that have been raised in submissions to assess the range of views that exist in the Commission on them. Among the issues discussed have been the method of appointing judges and the electoral system. The Commission will shortly be embarking on the writing of its report. It is at the moment having the benefit of advice from a number of experts on voting systems, local government, systems of government and gender issues. One of the key issues facing the Commission is the system of government they should recommend. The one we have is the parliamentary system we inherited at Independence in l966, the Westminster model, with the Executive Presidency engrafted on it in l980, a peculiar hybrid. The Presidency goes to the party that gets the most votes, it need not be a majority. Most members of the National Assembly are elected by proportional representation but twelve come in through the regional system. Proposals made range from a federal system (GIFT and ROAR) to executive power sharing (Lowe, Mc Allister and Norton). Crucially, however, the official submissions of the two main parties do not recommend any major changes in the system of government, though the PNC has proposed procedural changes of some significance to the parliamentary system. There are twenty commissioners of whom four are appointed by the PPP and three by the PNC. There has been no indication so far that these commissioners will consider themselves bound by their parties' positions though they will obviously take them into account and give them due weight. Their mandate would seem to require them to give appropriate consideration to all the submissions made and the views of their colleagues in discussions. And of course their parties have made no submissions on many of the issues to be dealt with which leaves them a free hand there. Some of the commissioners are completely independent, others have a relationship with one of the two main parties. How will it be decided eventually what position the Commission holds on various issues? As we understand it, a meeting of all the commissioners will be held and a vote will be taken. If there is a consensus on an issue there will be no problem. If there is not the report will indicate the various positions held on particular issues. The adviser on systems of government is Dr Theodore Hanz a German scholar who has done research on ethnic conflicts which has taken him to several countries including Lebanon, Congo, Rwanda, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia. The Commission will therefore have the opportunity to ascertain what constitutional innovations have been devised elsewhere in an effort to deal with this problem and how they have worked in practice. The questions of democracy and conflict resolution in ethnically divided societies are very much on the world's agenda today and are in no way unique to Guyana. Because of the general preoccupation with the civil service strike there has been a tendency to forget that the Commission is entering a vital stage of its important work and will in just over a month present its report to the National Assembly. There is considerable interest in what will be forthcoming. 
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