Power-grab…

…by Speaker

In one of the most barefaced moves to seize power in this country, the Speaker of the House, Raphael Trotman, is counting on the desire of the Government to get on with the business of developing the country to allow him to get away with it. As we warned yesterday about allowing “expedience” to guide political action, we hope the Government recognises Trotman’s Trojan Horse.

What are the undisputed facts? Firstly, that in our country, it is a settled matter of Constitutional Law that we accept and practise the principle of Judicial Review. That is, that if there’s a dispute about the interpretation between any set of parties, including the Executive and the Legislature, it’s the remit of the Judicial Branch of Government to resolve it. The “dispute” includes any and all laws, including the Constitution, which is the highest law of the land.

This was even accepted by Forbes Burnham in the aftermath of the famous case of Teemal vs GuySuCo. So here it is that the Executive felt that the Opposition-controlled Assembly, full of its one-seat majority and with the acquiescence of the Speaker, illegally cut its budget estimates and took the matter to the Courts.

The Legislature – including the Speaker who was named as a respondent – was told in no uncertain terms the cuts were illegal. We don’t have to rehearse the specifics for the millionth time: bottom line is the Government’s estimates can’t be cut.  Period.

So it surpasses our understanding that the Government has evidently cut a deal with the Speaker and the Opposition (who, while epistemologically different, are ontologically identical) to have an “ad hoc” tri-partisan committee examine the budget to discuss what the Government is willing to reduce “voluntarily”. This is letting the barbarians through the back door…which has been emphatically “kicked” down by Trotman. And we all know what happens after the back door is kicked down.

It’ll be the Opposition all the way. So what happens when the Opposition demands a reduction of a budget item that the Executive doesn’t want to budge on? Some might think the problem is we’ve only moved the impasse one stage back. But it’s more than that. The Government has tacitly accepted the Opposition’s contention that its chopping isn’t illegal. And the Opposition, smelling blood, will rush in for the kill.

There was no need for the Government to keel over: even if the Opposition chopped, it could’ve gone along and spent in accordance with its estimates. It is what the courts, arbiters of the Constitutional order, ruled.