…if President does not proclaim it dissolved by then
CLERK of the National Assembly, Sherlock Isaacs, said that should the work of the National Assembly not come to an end by September 27, Parliament will stand constitutionally dissolved on that date, without fail.
Isaacs confirmed this during the last sitting of the National Assembly on Thursday.
On August 4, the National Assembly approved a motion for parliamentarians to work through the recess from August 10 to September 27.This motion, however, did not have the approval of the Opposition benches. The PNCR1G said that it would not be attending the extended session of Parliament unless for reasons it considers to be of national importance.
The Government brought the motion to the house one week before the scheduled commencement of the parliamentary recess. Tabling the motion, Prime Minister Sam Hinds said the decision to seek a postponement of the parliamentary recess was not one that the Government took lightly.
He said that there were a number of bills which have been long in preparation, and it would have been a great loss not to conclude them. Here he spoke of the Telecommunications Bill and the Access to Information Bill.
The prime minister made it clear that the postponement of the parliamentary recess was in no way an extension of this period of Government, and insisted that the Parliament will dissolve on September 27, 2011.
However, the main Opposition withheld its support for the motion, saying that government had enough time to complete all of the work on its parliamentary agenda. The Opposition had accused the government of bad management and of not fully utilising the Parliamentary Management Committee to effectively plan the parliamentary agenda.
In a comment to the Guyana Chronicle, Isaacs said that the Constitution makes clear that the parliament must be dissolved five years to the day after the date of commencement of the Parliament after elections. He directed this newspaper to the Constitution of Guyana, of which Article 70 (3) states thus: “Parliament, unless sooner dissolved, shall continue for five years to the date when the Assembly first meets after any dissolution and shall then stand dissolved.”
The National Assembly is still to meet to consider the third reading of the Public Utilities Amendment Bill and the Telecommunications Bill on Thursday September 22, 2011.
At one of his weekly post-Cabinet press briefings at the Office of the President recently, Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr. Roger Luncheon, stated that the Ninth Parliament  will constitutionally end on September 27, 2011.
He noted that this period before the wrap-up of the Ninth Parliament would have seen important, planned legislation being completed in the National Assembly. This, he said, included reports from Parliamentary Committees and the tabling of a Financial Bill to replenish the contingency fund in support of supplementary provisions tabled. The HPS said that, during this period, no additional, new legislation will be tabled.