“The supreme law of this land forbids the National Assembly from reducing or amending the estimates presented by the Minister of Finance (Dr Ashni Singh) for the year 2013.”

This is the firm position that is held, and repeated again yesterday, by the Government’s Legal Advisor and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall.
In a statement to the media titled, ‘The constitutional vulgarity of the proposed budget cuts’, Nandlall said:  “Notwithstanding that the letter and spirit of the Constitution, the supreme law of this land, forbids the National Assembly from reducing or amending the estimates presented by the Minister of Finance for the year 2013; notwithstanding that the Chief Justice of the country, in a 34 page ruling delivered on the 18th July, 2012, interpreted the relevant constitutional provisions and confirmed that the Opposition has no power under the Constitution to reduce or amend these estimates, the joint Opposition have signaled their intention to do so.”
In his proposed arguments against the cuts that have been identified, Nandlall drew reference to the ruling by the Chief Justice (ag) Ian Chang, which he said clearly confirmed that the Opposition has no power under the Constitution to reduce or amend these estimates.
As such, the Minister says he believes that by signaling its intention to still go ahead and make cuts to the 2013 budget, “the joint Opposition are demonstrating to the world their naked and vulgar disregard for the Constitution, the rule of law and the democratic norms and tradition of Parliament.”
Nandlall believes that the moves signaled by the combined opposition in Parliament places the highest law making authority of this land in conflict with the rule of law and the Constitution. “They are placing this nation firmly on that precarious highway to anarchy,” he posited.
The Legal Affairs Minister who also serves as the Attorney General, for Guyana, in support of his arguments, points to the Constitution of Guyana which states: “The Minister responsible for Finance or any other Minister designated by the President shall cause to be prepared and laid before the National Assembly before or within ninety days after the commencement of each financial year, estimates of the revenues and expenditure of Guyana for that year.”
Nandlall said that interpreting and explaining the provision, Chief Justice (ag) Chang had adumbrated: “It can readily be seen that it is the Minister of Finance (or other designated Minister) who bears the constitutional responsibility and duty of preparing and laying before the National Assembly the estimates of both revenues and expenditure.”
Chang had ruled that “this is so because it is the Executive that has the constitutional responsibility of managing and piloting the ship of State and, as a matter of practical reality, the administrative machinery for preparing such estimates.”
Chang had further stated that in respect of expenditure, it is the National Assembly which bears the constitutional responsibility of performing an oversight or a gate-keeping function of approval or non-approval over the estimates of expenditure to ensure that they are in consonance with what will be necessary to fuel the implementation of the plans, programmes and policies of the executive government.
“This is not a power of making estimates of expenditure (which is for the Minister)…The power of approval must therefore be distinguished from a power of determination of estimates of expenditure.”
Nandlall in his arguments also turns to the ruling of the Chief Justice on the powers of the Finance Minister and reminded that the ruling states, “clearly it is the Minister of Finance on whom the Constitution has reposed the responsibility of preparing estimates of both revenues and expenditure.”
AG Nandlall also relies on the ruling and Chang’s take on the separation of powers between the National Assembly and the Executive.
In that ruling Chief Justice (ag) Chang has said, “it does appear to the court that it was not permissible for the National Assembly to cut or reduce the estimates of expenditure to any particular figure since, in so doing, the National Assembly was both determining and approving such estimates. If the drafters of the Constitution had wanted the National Assembly to exercise such a power, they could have easily conferred such a power on it in the Constitution in express terms – as was done in India.”
The Legal Affairs Minister as such maintains that it is excruciatingly plain “that the joint Opposition has no power to cut, alter or amend the estimates presented by the Finance Minister.”
He says that this being made pellucid by the Chief Justice (ag), the combined opposition in “an indecent disregard for the constitutional provisions and the Chief Justice’s guidance, the Opposition insist that they will cut the Budget estimates.”
Nandlall said that ever since June, 2012 last year when the judgment was handed down, “not a single step was taken by the 14  lawyers who appeared for the Speaker and Leader of the Opposition, to appeal, set aside or challenge this ruling in any form or fashion.”
Nandlall said that such a challenge could have taken the matter all the way to the Caribbean Court of Justice but, “they did nothing.”
Nandlall contends further that the opposition argument, that the ruling is preliminary and therefore not binding, “is absolutely puerile and vexatious.”
He said that the ruling of a court is binding until and unless it is reversed or set aside, adding that “a ruling of a court neither loses its potency nor its efficacy because it is preliminary…Indeed, almost every injunction granted is preliminary,” said Nandlall and asks “can anyone, sanely, argue that such injunctions are not binding?”
The Legal Affairs Minister has since, in a clarion call, exhorted that “all law abiding and democratic minded citizens must raise their voices in objection…When a Parliament deliberately violates its own Constitution and refuses to obey its own laws, it marks the beginning of a swift journey to anarchy and the destruction of any country.”