ARGUING that there was a miscalculation of majority when the motion of no-confidence was put to a vote on December 21, 2018, Attorney General Basil Williams in his submission to the High Court, contended that the Speaker of the National Assembly Dr. Barton Scotland failed to follow the precepts as stipulated by the constitution.
In the case The Attorney General vs Speaker of the National Assembly and Leader of the Opposition, Williams (the applicant) is challenging passage of the no-confidence motion against the government on the basis that the opposition did not secure a majority as required by the constitution.

In his legal submissions on Friday, the attorney general maintained that in order for the government to be defeated on a vote of confidence, 34 or more votes of all the elected members in favour of the motion was required and not 33. This, he said, is grounded in established parliamentary precedence and practice and case law in the Commonwealth.
In laying the foundation of his argument, Williams referenced the definition of “majority rule” as outlined by the Merriam Webster Dictionary (1828). According to that definition, majority rule is “a political principle providing that a majority usually constituted by 50 per cent plus one of an organised group will have the power to make decisions binding upon the whole.”

According to him, this definition is applied in no-confidence cases to both even and uneven numbers Parliaments and in the latter case where fractions are involved, the rounding up of the fractions require at least a majority of two clear votes.

Citing the case of Kilman V Speaker of Parliament of Vanuatu (2011), Williams alluded to the fact that the Vanuatu Constitution provides for the Parliament to pass a motion of no-confidence in the prime minister, but only if supported by an absolute majority of the Members of Parliament. That Parliament has 52 members; however, in the case in point, only 51 voted and the Speaker had ruled that the motion was carried by a 26:25 vote. While the Speaker’s ruling was upheld at the level of the Supreme Court, the Appellate Court ruled that the Speaker’s ruling was in contradiction to the constitution.

“At P.667 letter h the Court of Appeal stated, “We consider that the phrase ‘an absolute majority of the Members of Parliament,’ can only mean at least half the Members of Parliament plus one. That is half of 52, being 26, plus one equals 27,” Williams pointed out in his submissions.

The attorney general submitted too that the rounding up of the fraction formula was also the manner of calculation used by the Speaker of the Anguilla House of Assembly in determining matters of quorum, citing the case Hughes v Rogers Civil Suits (High Court of Anguilla January 2000) as a case in point.

He said more recently, the Conservative Party applied the same formula when a motion of no-confidence was moved against Prime Minister Theresa May last December.

“The total number of voters was 315, but when divided that number would have been 157.5 and when rounded up the number would be 158. In order for the motion to be carried, the majority needed was 159. Although this was not a motion of the Parliament it still demonstrates how uneven numbers and fractions are to be treated with respect to voting in the case of majorities for no- confidence motions,” Williams explained.
He put to the court that 34 votes were required for the motion to be effective.

“In accordance with the Laws of Guyana, the National Assembly comprises 65 members. Mathematically, half of all the elected members of the current National Assembly would result in a fraction of 32.5. That figure should then be rounded up to the next whole number being 33, which would now represent half of the elected members. In accordance with practice, the application of the meaning of majority means that ‘1’ must now be added to ‘33’ to calculate a majority,” he maintained.

It was on this basis that he put to the High Court that the failure to obtain 34 or more votes breached article 106(6) of the constitution. He is contending that the issuance of Resolution 101 by the Speaker is unlawful.

Citing the case of Smith v Mutasa and Another, in which the Speaker’s certification of a matter was deemed unlawful, the attorney general reminded the High Court that the principles of the constitution are sacred and sacrosanct and cannot be discharged by the Parliament itself.

“We submit most respectfully that the framers of our constitution could not have intended for a government to be defeated by a majority, but rather an absolute majority of all members present. In all the circumstances, this could only be 34 votes in order that the motion be carried,” Williams said.

He also put to the High Court the question of whether Resolution 101 being subsidiary legislation can lawfully abridge or curtail the five years the government’s term of office provided for in Article 70 (3).

“It is respectfully submitted that Resolution 101 cannot lawfully abridge or curtail the five years term of office of the APNU+AFC Government and to the extent that it is inextricable [sic] connected with and intertwined with the mandatory requirements of article 106 that the Cabinet and President resign no later than March 31st 2019, it purports to curtail or abridge the APNU+AFC term which constitutionally expires no earlier than May 2020, and to that extent that it has the effect of reducing the five-year term in terms of article 70(3), it is pro tanto inconsistent with Article 70 (3) and invalid for such inconsistency,” he told the court.

Meanwhile, Attorney-at-Law Anil Nandlall, who is representing the interest of the second-named respondents, put forward four definitions to support his argument that a majority refers to more than half.

He pointed out that a majority, according to Blacks Law Dictionary 8th Edition, “always refers to more than half of some defined or assumed set. In parliamentary law, that set, may be all of the members or some subset, such as all members present or all members voting on a particular question.”
Nandlall put to the court that 33 is what constitutes a majority in the National Parliament of Guyana.

“It is of course true that a motion of no-confidence which received the vote of 34 elected members will have been passed by a majority. But the inevitable consequence of the approach which the attorney general advocates for determining a majority is that in every case where a body is made up of an uneven number of persons, a majority of that body must exceed the minority by at least three. By his calculation, a majority of 11 would be 7 (11÷2=5 1/2,, rounded to 6;6+1=7). This would necessarily mean that a court comprising three judges can only make decisions unanimously, since a majority of three must necessary [sic] be three,” the lawyer representing the opposition leader argued.

He noted too that there is no definition of the word “majority” under the constitution, and as such, it must be given its natural and ordinary meaning.
“Arithmetically this translates to the number which is greater than half of the whole question,” he said, while putting to the court that the attorney general erred in his arithmetical formulation.