CECIL Dhurjon, Senior Counsel (SC), CCH who has given yeoman service to Guyana as its Chief Parliamentary Counsel, has retired and his deputy for many years, Charles Fung-a-Fat, SC, has succeeded him. The newly minted Senior Counsel brings to this important portfolio more than three decades of experience in the field. With such institutional memory and acquired competence, the possibilities exist for the creation of a new era in our parliamentary democracy.
Fung-a-Fat’s appointment comes at a time when the APNU+AFC Government has put in place an architecture, not only to strengthen the Parliament, but also to protect its day-to-day activities and give it its deserving independence in accordance with the Guyana Constitution.
Recent decisions by the Government to make Parliament financially autonomous has put Guyana on a progressive path. This path positions the legislative branch of government to secure its supremacy as the nation’s highest decision-making forum, consistent with Article 51 of the Constitution. In this environment, the new Chief Parliamentary Counsel will note a departure from recent times when the parliament was subsumed by the Executive.
The inherited status of subsuming the administrative activities of Parliament into the Executive has hindered the House working at full capacity and consistent with Article 171. This article allows for any member to bring a bill to parliament, but such has been hamstrung due to the absence of technical assistance and intrusion of the Executive. Coupling the two branches of government has proven to be challenging to our democracy, in that it obscures the delinking of their distinctive roles and inherent checks –and-balances structure.
Currently, the office of the Chief Parliamentary Counsel operates under the aegis of the Attorney General, who is the Chief Legal Advisor to the Executive. In the quest to make Parliament independent in its true sense, it may require examining the utility of placing the legislative draftsmen within the structure of parliament, physical and organisational. Parliament comprises the Opposition and Government benches. Our history has been one where the opposition, bar none, has complained of limitations in drafting legislation. Accusations and counter-accusations have marked relationships between the two sides on this aspect of legislative business and have proven unhealthy for our polarised politics and for securing inclusion.
There can be no doubt our parliamentary system stands to benefit from capacity-building. Building capacity can see the establishment of a new unit comprising legal draftsmen to assist our lawmakers in putting in place laws that can strengthen articles in the constitution. Articles in the constitution are considered declarations of intent and require laws to flow therefrom to give them true meaning.
There are specific articles should the Parliament move to make them laws from which the society would undoubtedly benefit, consistent with the government’s thrust of engendering social cohesion and fostering national unity. One such is Article 13 that puts inclusionary democracy as the principal political objective of the political system, and the other Article 77A which allows for strengthening our grassroots democracy.
There is significant contestation about the powers and immunity of the President under the constitution. There is a school of thought that Article 182, which outlines the immunity of the president, means the office holder is above the constitution. Another school of thinking contends that this cannot be so, given that the president has sworn to an oath to uphold the constitution and one cannot be above what one has sworn to uphold. Only laws will settle these conflicting positions.
Within the society there are persons with the institutional memory and competence to train a cadre of lawyers to become legal draftsmen. In our midst names that readily come to mind are Dhurjon and Justice Duke Pollard, who can lend needed support to Fung-at-Fat. There exists confidence that should these learned gentlemen be approached, they will not shirk in empowering younger minds to take Guyana into the future.
Attracting attention too can be the Sir Michael Davies’ Report on Parliament. In this report, where attention was given to policy and management, recommendations were made for institutional strengthening and in some regards by the way of laws. The creation of an independent unit comprising a cadre of draftsmen will help in bringing realisation to critical areas in this report, which was solicited with the aim of strengthening our parliamentary democracy. Frank and honest evaluation over the years will show that there has been a decline in parliamentary performance. Advancing the nation’s growth and development requires reassessment and realignment in a progressive direction.