ACTING Chief Justice Ian Chang has

ruled that the political opposition’s motion to gag Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee in the National Assembly is unconstitutional.
In a 33-page ruling, the Chief Justice said that Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee has a constitutional right as an elected member of the National Assembly to speak on any matter and that his constituents have a reciprocating right to have their representative in the Parliament speak on their behalf.
This ruling comes on the heels of two of his previous rulings which involved the workings of our Parliament. The cuts to the national budget pursued by the opposition and which was challenged by the government in the court was ruled as unconstitutional and the decade-long claim  that funds from the Guyana Lottery Fund should be deposited into the Consolidated Fund was also thrown out by the Chief Justice.
It would be interesting to see how the opposition would respond to this ruling.
What is surprising is that the opposition parties have an overflowing number of legal professionals and therefore should have been aware of the unconstitutionality of their motions, and this was pointed out by the government. However, the opposition behaved as if the Parliament was higher than the opposition and persisted with their ill-conceived action and one would wonder how they feel now.
But, after all, the actions of the opposition may not be that surprising because it is more than likely that they are aware of the unconstitutionality of their actions. What seems to be the case is that these actions are part of a carefully orchestrated strategy to frustrate the national development efforts of the government and bring it to its knees.
In the attempted gagging of Mr. Rohee, it was clearly a case of what we say in Guyanese parlance, they “tried a thing” and if it had succeeded then they would have moved against other ministers until the entire cabinet was shut up which would have been tantamount to shutting up the entire government apparatus. Fortunately, the ploy did not work as was in the previous cases.
What is unfolding here is that the opposition with their combined one-seat majority is behaving like the boy with his new toy, but in the process has succeeded only in making a masquerade of themselves and revealing their foolishness and unpatriotic behaviour.
When Mr. Rohee unveiled his security sector reform plan, a leader of one of the opposition political parties said that they saw no problem with it but would not support it because it was coming from the minister. This is most laughable and nothing short of childishness and one would hope that the Guyanese people are taking careful note of this because this is the same politician who hopes to become president of this country one day.
And another member of the opposition, very bitter that he did not become the presidential candidate of the ruling party at the last elections, is now saying that while they will abide by the Chief Justice’s ruling, they will not listen or hear what Mr. Rohee has to say! Could there be anything more bewildering, confusing and downright stupid than such a stance? How could they abide by the ruling and still not listen to Mr. Rohee?
Yet this opposition speaking with a forked tongue has the gall to tell the Guyanese people that they are willing to work with the government to move the country forward. Clearly, their actions do not match their words and therefore they cannot and should not be trusted by the Guyanese people. We must not ever forget that they were the architects of the tragic events at Linden and Agricola, but when it backfired on them they began dissociating themselves.
The issue of the election of the Speaker and Deputy Speaker was the first acid test of the opposition’s sincerity to work with the government to move Guyana forward and they failed it miserably, because Guyana probably has the unenviable distinction as the only country in the world where both positions are held by the opposition.
So from the early period of this new dispensation the opposition made it clear what political path it intends to follow and its subsequent actions have confirmed this.
It has clearly been wasting the time of the National Assembly and the taxpayers’ money in engaging in counterproductive actions which do not augur well for the future of this country.
The political opposition must know that the deliberations of the National Assembly are not about brinkmanship, but rather a forum for representing and furthering the interests of our peoples and national development.
It is not that they do not know this, but are simply using the National Assembly as part of their pursuit of political power and would stop at nothing to achieve this as one political leader of the past did.
However, our people must be the guardians of our hard-won democracy and continuing socio-economic development.