– AG says of opposition-led motion
– pledges gov’t continued restoration of judiciary independence

AMONG its first tasks since assuming office in 2015 was to ensure that the judiciary functions on its own, he said.

And that’s what the APNU+AFC government has been doing right up to this point in time; guaranteeing that, that arm of governance remains autonomous, Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Basil Williams told the National Assembly on Friday as he vehemently opposed the no-confidence motion tabled by Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo.

“It was the APNU+AFC government which, among its first acts, restored the independence of the judiciary by passing legislation to determine their budget without any direction from the government,” Williams said, adding that this was seen as the triumph of the restoration of the rule of law here.

As he defended the record of the government, Williams said that the administration will continue to ensure that the judicial system functions on its own, unlike under the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) government when it was in a quagmire.

“We also had a broken judiciary,” he said, adding that at one time, the acting chancellor of the judiciary also decided to act as chief justice, and was stopped only by the intervention of a High Court judge.

And the reason this happened, he said, was all because the PPP government used legislation which ensured that the functions of the chief justice were transferred to that of the chancellor.

“It was a broken system,” the attorney general said, which, despite being rejected by successive Leaders of the opposition, was allowed to flourish under the PPP administration by continuing to select one individual to hold the office of chancellor of the judiciary.
What this resulted in, he said, were the two positions being “acting” positions for more than a decade, a situation which the current government inherited.

And to remedy the problem, he said, the current government invited Jagdeo to decide on the way forward for the two positions to lead the judiciary, recalling that at one point Jagdeo even refused to confirm the two nominees.

THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS
As Williams spoke on the government’s record, he told the National Assembly that the administration has accomplished many feats in the past three years, including cleaning up the economy of dirty money by ridding it of the “muck of narcotics trafficking”, corruption and other serious offences.

“We have prepared our economy to receive clean money from our oil and gas,” Williams said to loud applause from the government side of the House.

He also spoke of the “dark times” the country endured under the previous administration, likening it unto a “theatre of war”; a time when the Roger Khan-led death squads reigned supreme as judge, jury and executioner, and hundreds of “sons and fathers” were killed.
He talked about the disappearances after persons were taken into custody, among them 40-year-old Franz Britton Wills and one Daniel Jones. The attorney general recalled that after Wills went missing in January 1999, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights had asked the then PPP government to account for his safety. But instead of doing so, the PPP denounced the organisation, and Wills was never seen or heard of again.
He recalled that during this “dark period” too, many young people were dragged before the courts and faced trumped-up charges.

He said the APNU+AFC government is only three years old, and as he looked across at the opposition leader, Williams noted that Jagdeo has “many, many more five-year periods” in that post.

Williams made reference to the PPP’s term in office when a number of women were killed. He said under that government, women such as Donna McKinnon and Donna Herod were killed by persons unknown.

He recalled that Mckinnon was killed while protesting against the PPP government near Freedom House on Robb Street in 2001, while Herod died after she was shot at Buxton when the security forces fired indiscriminately close to a nursery school. “It made Guyana a failed state,” he said.

STILL DIVISIVE
During his speech, he said the opposition continues to work to divide the populace as he noted that the motion was ill-conceived, ill-timed and malicious. “It would never steal the merit of Christmas,” Williams said, as he informed the opposition of the meaning of the season.

He said the Guyanese people have seen change, even as he rejected the no-confidence motion moved by Jagdeo. The attorney-general said what the opposition on Friday said in Parliament was repetitive of what it stated during the recent budget debate.
Opposition MP Gail Teixeira spoke on Friday of the party’s recent performance at the Local Government Elections and that result which led to it taking the no-confidence motion to the National Assembly.

She said the party wanted the motion debated before the budget which was presented on November 26, 2018, as she explained its relevance. She said the party has a mandate to fulfil and she noted that government has had many opportunities when it assumed office.
As she spoke of its mandate, Teixeira said the party has made several initiatives and brought same to the National Assembly,but those have been rejected by the government. She spoke of the government’s ability to deliver to the population and during her speech, she noted that the PPP “watches” the government ever since it assumed office in May 2015.

CAPTIONS: Photos saved as: Basil 1 & Gail 1
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2: Opposition MP Gail Teixeira during her presentation in the National Assembly on Friday (Adrian Narine photos)