PARLIAMENT IS NO FOOTSTOOL
January 20, 2015 | By KNews | Filed Under Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom, Source - Kaieteur News
If Parliament has become the footstool of the President and his party, then what does this assessment say about the opposition parties which collectively hold a one-seat majority over the National Assembly — one component of Parliament?
What does it say about the vigilance of the majority opposition to safeguard this important representative institution?
What grade is going to be given to an opposition that has allowed an institution that it dominates with its one-seat majority to become a footstool of the President and the ruling party?
Parliament comprises both the President and the National Assembly and therefore to suggest that the President is doing what he pleases with the Parliament, ignores the fact that without the President there can be no Parliament.
While therefore it is being suggested that the President and his government are using the National Assembly as their stool, the opposition parties in turn were attempting to stomp on the government, of which the President is also the Head, by railroading through a motion of no-confidence.
This motion of no-confidence was not intended to debate the merits of government policy or its performance on the job. In fact, for the first time ever in the history of civilized parliamentary conduct what was being presented was a motion of no-confidence without any reasons being adduced as to why the government should resign.
Guyana would have made history had such a motion been carried. Nothing could be more contemptuous of the people than to have a government which won the elections be removed by a National Assembly without even the decency of that Assembly providing reasons in their motion of no-confidence. The opposition parties by pledging their support for the no-confidence motion was turning the National Assembly into a dogfight in the Wild West.
It is totally unheard of for any democratically elected government to be removed via a no- confidence motion if that motion does not allow for the government to a fair hearing. But how can there be a fair hearing when the government has not been charged with any specific offence. There was no whereas clause in the motion and so what was being out before the House was a debate on nothing because there the motion of itself lacked any flesh.
It was a skeletal creature intended to constitutionally topple the government.
Well, constitutions have always entrenched safeguard provisions against the tyranny of parliament. Burnham invoked one such safeguard when in the 1980 Constitution was included clause that allowed him to dissolve the National Assembly before they could remove him.
That provision was removed via amendments tabled and passed during the Constitutional Reform Process. This process commenced after the 1997 elections. Under the reforms the power of the President to avoid impeachment by dissolving the National Assembly was removed.
What was not removed- and with good cause- was the power of the President to summon, prorogue or dissolve. This power was retained because it formed part of a legacy of reserve powers, historically vested in the Crown, whose objective is to safeguard against tyranny of the legislature.
There are also provisions within the Constitution to safeguard against the abuse of the use of reserve powers of the President. Prorogation for example cannot be employed indefinitely. It is time- bound. The President cannot prorogue parliament indefinitely.
Those who therefore casually string clichÉs together and label the use of the reserve powers under the Constitution as an exercise of using parliament as a foot stool either do not understand fully the Constitution of Guyana or casually opt to ignore it.