Telling the nation that a sitting of the National Assembly must await the outcome of a meeting between the President and Opposition Leader demonstrates contempt for the people and the Speaker must bring an end to this situation without delay, former Speaker of the National Assembly Ralph Ramkarran says.

Over the past weeks, there has been a debate as to who has the authority to reconvene sittings at the end of a recess where a date has not been fixed for sittings. Clerk of the National Assembly Sherlock Isaacs has said that the government has to call the sitting while Ramkarran has said that the current Speaker is obligated to convene a sitting of Parliament soonest and has the authority to do so. Current Speaker Raphael Trotman has said that he has consulted with former House speakers and was considering the way forward. He is to make a proposal today.

In addition, on Friday, government’s chief whip in the National Assembly Gail Teixeira said that she is awaiting the outcome of the ongoing engagement between President Donald Ramotar and Opposition Leader David Granger before setting a date to reconvene Parliament.

Wholly wrong

Ralph Ramkarran

In his Sunday Stabroek column yesterday, Ramkarran said that it has been wholly wrong and ultra vires the power of the current and past Speakers to convene the National Assembly at the request of the Government, in clear violation of Standing Order 8(1). “If the parties wish to have the possibility of adjourning the National Assembly to an unspecified date, and for it to be convened at the request of the Government or the Chief Whips or someone else, then the Standing Order should be amended and such a rule included. It was wholly wrong for the stakeholders to manufacture a practice, elaborate examples of which the Clerk set out in his letter, which violated Standing Order 8(1),” he wrote.

While Ramkarran has been basing his arguments on Standing Order 8 (1), Isaacs has relied on Standing Order 8 (2) which states that “If, during an adjournment of the Assembly, it is represented to the Speaker by the Government, or the Speaker is of the opinion, that the public interest requires that the Assembly should meet on a day earlier than that to which it stands adjourned, the Speaker may give notice accordingly and the Assembly shall meet at the time stated in such notice.”

The Clerk had said that it was not possible in his view for the Speaker to set a date and that the Speaker only had the authority to adjust a date that had already been set should the public interest arise. When it went into recess, the Assembly was adjourned without a date for its reconvening fixed. Isaacs also cited two precedents which he said have backed up his position.

However, Ramkarran in his column said that ‘Practice and precedents’ upon which the Clerk seeks to rely “do not and cannot supersede or violate a specific rule, such as Standing Order 8(1), now that it has been correctly interpreted, or give power to the Speaker to fix a date where none exists, as I have argued and as the Clerk has agreed.”