THE 10th Parliament has, so far, occasioned wanton abandonment of established parliamentary practices and norms; and Government ministers and parliamentarians are being singled out for abuse in the media. These were some of the views of Cabinet when it met last Tuesday, Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon, reported yesterday at his usual post-Cabinet press conference at the Office of the President on Shiv Chanderpaul Drive in Georgetown.

Cabinet contend that this “heresy” has spawned consequences that are yet to be elucidated, much less accommodated, according to Luncheon.

He noted how legislative practices are being subjected to arbitrary revision, existing legislation have been targeted for reforms, and Cabinet members and PPP/C parliamentarians are being singled out for unjust threats and assaults in the media.

He cited such examples as the Ministers of Finance; Housing and Water; and Home Affairs, and noted that the list can go on. In the case of the Home Affairs Minister, Luncheon said: “A more wicked and vicious design on one of our best ministers is unfolding before our very eyes.
“Cabinet asserts that the PPP/C MPs, the PPP/C contingent in Parliament, would remain even more prepared than ever for this phase in the struggle wherever, whatever or whenever,” Luncheon remarked.  

Contentious Exercise
Luncheon said the occurrence of minority Parliaments is not new, and the convention that surrounds parliamentary practices has, over decades of parliamentary democracy, certainly addressed all of the nuances of minority Parliament.

“I don’t believe that there exists a body of experience, knowledge, writing about parliamentary democracy in which pronouncements about minority Parliaments are not included. So when we speak about breaches, we are speaking about the totality of parliamentary practices.

“I don’t believe that we can conjure some notion…that nothing has been written; that Trotman and his ilk and Granger and his ilk are now writing for the world some prescription of how to deal with minority Parliaments.

“It’s been written before. This notion, if there is such, that this is a minority Parliament and there is nothing written anywhere, and therefore we can do as we please, please let us dispense, let us disabuse our minds of such nonsense.

“The fact is that minority Parliaments have been; are; and the way things are going, likely to continue to be normative. We are adding — and that’s the sad thing about it — Guyanese practices to the body of knowledge about parliamentary procedures involving a minority Parliament, and it is a most contentious exercise,” he said.