NEWLY-appointed Town Clerk of the Georgetown municipality, Mr Royston King, is ready and eager to change a controversial ‘pregnancy policy’ found in the Standing Orders of the City Constabulary.He has already intervened to request that three recently-fired City constables be re-instated, but his actions are unilateral, although made under special considerations.

The policy which effected the trio’s dismissal is still in effect.

As Town Clerk, empowered by local government legislation, King has direct responsibility for the City Constabulary. The Constabulary comprises approximately 70% female officers, according to Chief Constable Andrew Foo, who recently told this publication that the Constabulary had no intention of amending the controversial policy.

The most recent revision of the Constabulary’s Standing Orders was done by Foo himself in 2013. However, Foo did not see fit to amend that particular policy, which opposed not only Guyana’s 1997 Prevention Against Discrimination Act, but also the Constitution — the supreme law of Guyana.

King is convinced that the policy must also see a change in the thinking at the level of the City Constabulary, a position that concurs with Gender Advocate and Women’s Activist Vanda Radzic, who is also a member of the Women and Gender Equality Commission.

Radzic went further than King to call for an overarching gender policy in Guyana that could be achieved through collaborative effort between Government and civil society partners. The gender advocate is convinced that a huge gap exists between the policies implemented at state agencies and those provisions for the fair treatment of women in the laws of Guyana.

“There should be a search-and-rescue programme to find where these outdated policies exist, and bring them in line with Guyana’s Constitution and our rule of law,” Radzic told the Guyana Chronicle in a telephone interview yesterday.

Plugging the need for a national gender policy, the gender advocate said: “The usefulness of a national policy is that it helps the whole legal framework to become more operative within agencies and organisations of the state and its civil society partners.” She added that such a policy “puts in place mechanisms for ensuring implementation.”

Radzic called for the new Administration to fulfil a promise made in its 100-day plan — to compile a gender policy from active discussion at the level of a national women’s conference.

While Town Clerk Royston King cannot, on his own, implement any amendment to the Constabulary’s policy, he has indicated that he would be drafting a proposal paper to be submitted to the City Council through the Personnel and Training Committee.

Expressing regret at the decision to sack the pregnant trio, and even the two sisters fired in 2014 from the Constabulary, King said, “This situation presents to the Council an opportunity to review (its policies), and this is what we are doing. We regret what had happened in the past. Our laws and regulations must not be unfavourable to women.”

King continued: “We are looking at support systems to help our women, not only in the constabulary, but also in the general employ of the Georgetown Municipality, in the areas of counselling, family planning and related guidance.”

Georgetown Mayor Hamilton Green, chief policy official in the City Council, told this publication two days ago that he has taken a “fundamental position of principle” on the issue. While touting the need for the courts to interpret the law, and acknowledging he was “no constitutional lawyer,” Mayor Green remarked that in Guyana’s security services, “people, including our females, must have a sense of responsibility.”

The Town Clerk was asked whether he was optimistic that councillors like Mayor Green would approve such amendments to the policy, which they had previously defended. He responded, “The Council needs to be guided by administration, and this is exactly what we are doing. So I am very optimistic that, with our guidance, Council will review and make the policies favourable towards our women, to protect their rights.”

The Mayor is the head of the policy unit of City Hall, which includes a chamber of councillors who are elected to serve for a period. The Town Clerk is the Chief Executive Officer of the City Administration, and is tasked with overlooking all administrative functions of the City Administration. That position is not contestable, and is made with recommendations from the City Council and with final approval from the Local Government Minister, now the Minister of Communities.

By Derwayne Wills