GUYANA on Thursday awaited the outcome of the sitting of the National Assembly to know whether Minister of Home Affairs, Clement Rohee would have been sanctioned with a ‘gag order’ or not, and while the issues arising out of the no-confidence motion brought against the Minister by the Opposition has been referred to the Committee of Privileges, the minister was also sanctioned by the speaker when he denied the minister the right to table and to speak on legislation presented to the house in his name.

This second part of the ruling by speaker Raphael Trotman on Thursday was in direct contradiction of his initial decision on November 15, when he ruled that he, the speaker, had no authority under the Laws of Guyana, the Constitution of Guyana or the Standing Orders of the National Assembly to prevent Minister Rohee from speaking.
Minister of Legal Affairs and Attorney General Anil Nandlall, addressing the speaker’s ruling on today’s edition of ‘Inside Parliament’, a programme broadcast on the National Communications Network said the second remit of the speaker’s ruling, prohibiting the minister from presenting legislation in his name to the National Assembly is a violation of Article of 171 of the Constitution which states that any member of the National Assembly can bring any Bill to the House. “I don’t know where the Speaker has found that power to interfere and deny Minister Rohee a right guaranteed to him by Article 171 of the Constitution. He did not say on what basis he got that power,” Minister Nandlall said.
“A very strange state of affairs and a travesty whereby a member of the National Assembly who holds a ministerial portfolio cannot perform his functions … by a ruling by the Speaker and that ruling, and sanction of prohibition was imposed though the minister was not told what is the offence which he has committed, and secondly no due process was extended to the minister,” the AG stated.
He pointed out that when the assembly sits on Thursdays it is to conduct the business of Government, and that the Standing Orders had been previously modified to ensure that the opposition benches were provided with a specific day each month on which to present their business. These regulations were established with the full involvement of the opposition through a series of processes.
However, the AG noted that during Thursday’s sitting an intervention was made by Opposition MP Basil Williams to suspend all the Standing Orders and rearrange the agenda fixed for that day’s sitting in order to propel a motion filed by the opposition that same day. All government’s objections were overruled including the new standing orders and new precedents were set, Minister Nandlall said when the Speaker allowed the motion to be proceeded with.
The AG objected when the Leader of the Opposition David Granger rose to move the motion presented in his (Granger’s) name, on the grounds that the issue of the no-confidence motion was before the courts and the current motion which sought to enforce it by gagging Minister Rohee should not have been allowed.
AG Nandlall said he was unable to convince the opposition benches that the freedom and powers of the parliament were subject to constitutional supremacy, where the constitution has created the parliament and given it the powers of freedom subject to the articles of the constitution. 
The AG noted that references to precedents in the British Parliament should take into consideration that it took place under a different legal system, “subject to the caveat that you are dealing now with a constitution that is supreme and that Britain has no constitution and has a parliament that is supreme.”
He posited that such precedents should be scrutinised to determine whether they satisfy the constitutional supremacy doctrine of Guyana. The AG noted also that the Opposition could find no examples in the Caribbean and in countries which have a written constitution which could support their case.
However, he noted that the opposition continued to place reliance on the British precedents and the case of Dr. Cheddi Jagan and Speaker Gajraj in 1965, notwithstanding the fact that the Jagan/Gajraj case came during the time when Guyana had a supreme Parliament and no Constitution, being a colony of Great Britain.
The AG stated that AFC leader Khemraj Ramjattan who cited the precedent “failed abysmally to make that fundamental distinction.”
He highlighted Ramjattan’s statements which essentially said,  “the majority of one in this parliament is supreme, they will do whatever they want, that the rules of natural justice and the rules of law do not apply to the parliament, that they can overrule them by a majority of one, that the constitution does not apply to them because they have freedom in that Parliament and that they can use their numerical strength of a one-seat majority to essentially subvert the constitution, reject the constitution and they have that political will, and they claim that is what the people of Guyana voted them for….and the court has no business to enquire what they do in parliament.”
Reviewing the circumstances leading up to the initial no-confidence motion and its premature tabling with respect to the outcome of government’s commitment to a Commission of Inquiry on the Linden shooting deaths, the AG stated that the motion tabled Thursday is devoid of any factual or evidential basis and is being used to pass a no-confidence motion in the minister who has been condemned for a wrong allegedly committed in Linden and not in the assembly.   
He stated that the motion brought does not say the minister has no right to speak; only that the opposition has no confidence in him, thus the minister has a right to speak and a role to perform the duties the constitution mandates him to.
Minister Nandlall observed that while an MP is placed before the Committee of Privileges (only if he violates a privilege of the National Assembly), regarding the speaker’s ruling of sending the issues arising out of the no confidence motion to the committee, he said, “the issue is inseparable and intricately entwined in a Member of Parliament and a person who holds responsibility for the Ministry of Home Affairs. So I don’t see how you can send the issue without sending the member. Who will defend the issue?” he questioned.
The AG stated also that there was no invitation or opportunity presented by the Speaker for the minister to say anything in his defence even though the speaker himself, during his ruling, had indicated his deepest concern about due process before he proceeded to impose the prohibition on the minister.
Nandlall also pointed out that it is obvious with the opposition majority in the Privileges Committee they will predictably gag Minister Rohee, completing the process begun by the speaker.
In the interim, whilst awaiting the outcome of the meeting of the committee on the issue, the AG noted that “you will have a Minister of Home Affairs who is essentially, wrongfully debarred from performing the functions of his office which the constitution permits him to do.”
The Legal Affairs Minister however, declared that there is nothing that the National Assembly could do in violation of the constitution which could withstand legal scrutiny.
Citing the case of the amendment of the Sexual Offences Act, the AG explained that the Amendment was tabled in response to the Chief Justice’s ruling that several sections were unconstitutional. This fact, the AG stated was the expression of the High Court’s role as the sentinel of the constitution which is over and above the sovereignty of Parliament.
Pointing to Ramjattan’s statement of ‘knocking off’ ministers one by one, he posited that this is a subversion of the constitution and could mean that the opposition believes that they could “pass a Motion and take a person’s house and even dismiss the President”.
The AG explained that the opposition’s constitutional role is to perform two functions: to scrutinise government’s conduct to ensure it is acting within the confines of the law and the constitution, and not abusing the constitutional rights of the citizens and the power of government, and to examine government’s spending of taxpayers’ dollars. They have to exercise that power in the National Assembly, the Committee of Supply and the Public Accounts Committee.
He noted that in the height of the Forbes Burnham and Desmond Hoyte administrations neither leader ever felt they had the right to dismiss a Member of Parliament.
Nandlall reiterated that what transpired in the Parliament on Thursday was a complete travesty. “The procedures were violated; the motion in the first place was inadmissible, and not supposed to have been entertained. … if you have a nullity from the beginning, everything that flows from it will be a nullity. The no confidence was a nullity and everything consequent to it is a nullity,” he concluded.  (GINA)