November 1,2016 Source
A constitution is a set of political principles and rules by which a State or organisation is governed, with regards to the rights of those governed. It is the supreme law which identifies the fundamental rights and freedoms which people are entitled to enjoy and governments and institutions must not violate. It is a social contract between the State and its citizens.
In Guyana, legal experts have opined that there are flaws in the Constitution in terms of its highly legalistic language, complexity and lack of relevance, and clarity on several democratic principles.
The Constitution is the highest governing document in the land. It officially came into effect on October 6, 1980. However, it was not Guyana’s first Constitution; the country’s first constitution was enacted on May 26, 1966 on the attainment of independence from Great Britain. It was a modified version of the 1961 constitution. Among other things, the Constitution reaffirmed the principle that Guyana is a democratic state founded on the rule of law, with executive power vested in the Prime Minister who was appointed by the majority party in Parliament.On February 23, 1970, the Burnham government declared Guyana a Cooperative Republic. The move had political ramifications. As his title changed from Prime Minister to President, Burnham consolidated his control over the political system and pushed for a new constitution to give himself more power.In 1980, a new constitution was enacted, the product of a fraudulent 1978 referendum which satisfied Burnham’s ambitions for absolute power. It created a number of organs that were consistent with a socialist political system modelled after the Cuban system and a presidency with supreme power that was immune from prosecution.
The opposition PPP criticised the constitution, and vowed to amend it to reduce the powers of the president if elected.Upon taking office in 1992, the PPP did not fulfill its promise to change the constitution. Instead, it made some cosmetic changes, but kept the powers of the Presidency intact and used them to its advantage. It also praised the Constitution as one of the most progressive in the Caribbean.
The parties now in government had criticised the PPP regime for abusing the Constitution and for not amending it as promised. Both APNU and the AFC had promised to amend the Constitution if elected. They campaigned heavily on constitutional change which was one of the items high on the agenda on their Manifestos.They claimed that the Constitution in its existing form did not serve the interest of the people and promised to appoint a Commission to amend it within three months of taking office.Their intent was to reduce the power of the Presidency and to include the Bill of Rights to protect the ethos of the nation’s liberal democracy and freedoms. Rather than appointing a Commission to amend the Constitution, the government appointed a Steering Committee under the Chairmanship of prominent attorney Nigel Hughes. It appeared that the government had decided to proceed to make changes to the Constitution in a two-stage approach, first a Steering Committee, then a Commission.
In April of this year, the Steering Committee delivered its report to the Prime Minister. Included in the report are the reduction of the powers of the President, devolution of power from the centre and reorganising the electoral system.In mid-June, the President halted the process by stating that he did not want a “boardroom constitutional reform.” As he puts it: I want people in their communities to meet and express their views. I don’t want a group of people sitting down in a room saying what must be done.”
The nation’s worst fears were realised, in that there has been a divergence of positions between the partners in the coalition on constitutional change – this threw the entire process into a tailspin and dampened future prospects for Constitutional reform.
Since then, there has been no serious discussion. It is rather unfortunate that Constitutional reform has once again been stalled.
