…resignation to take effect after constitutional processes applied

THREE of the four government ministers with dual citizenship, who have resigned as Members of the National Assembly, have indicated they will renounce their foreign citizenship and President David Granger said that their resignations as Cabinet ministers will not take effect until the required constitutional processes have been applied.

On Wednesday, one day after he accepted resignation letters from Vice-President and Foreign Affairs Minister, Carl Greenidge; Minister of State, Joseph Harmon; Minister of Public Service, Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine; and Minister of Business, Dominic Gaskin;

President Granger said several processes must be followed before the resignations take effect. The MPs tendered their resignations to the President on Monday April 1, 2019 in keeping with the indications of High Court and Court of Appeal that it is unconstitutional for a person who swore allegiance, obedience or adherence to a foreign power or state to be a Member of Parliament. Harmon is an American citizen while Greenidge, Dr. Roopnaraine and Gaskin are British citizens, however, with the exception of Gaskin, the others have signalled their willingness to renounce their foreign citizenship in the future.

OFFERING CLARITY
Offering clarity on the situation, President Granger, in a statement on Wednesday, explained that the replacement of MPs can be done only when those MPs submit their letters of resignation to the Speaker of the National Assembly as prescribed by the Constitution of Guyana.

Article 156 (1) (A) of the Constitution states that “a member of the National Assembly shall vacate his or her seat therein – if he or she resigns it by writing under his or her own hand addressed to the Speaker or, if the Office of the Speaker is vacant or the Speaker is absent from Guyana, to the Deputy Speaker.” Another section of the Article stipulates that a MP ceases to be a member of the National Assembly if he or she declares in writing to the Speaker or to the Representative of the List from which his or her name was extracted, that he or she will not support the List from which his or her name was extracted. Once a resignation letter is submitted to the Speaker, by virtue of Article 156 (4), he will declare the seat of the Member of the National Assembly vacant.

Additionally, President Granger explained that the nomination of new MPs can be done only after the extraction of names from the National Top-Up list is approved by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM). As such, the four ministers – Greenidge, Harmon, Gaskin and Dr. Roopnaraine – will remain ministers until all the processes are completed. The President, moreover, has not approved replacements at this time. However, he noted that the resignation of the ministers is in keeping with the Constitution of Guyana as well as the March 22, 2019 ruling of the Court of Appeal relative to the validity of the no-confidence motion passed on December 21, 2018. On Tuesday, hours after the announcement was made, Cabinet said for the ensuing period, as is the usual practice, the ministerial portfolios, when they become vacant, would be held by sitting members of Cabinet who previously acted when those ministers were on leave or out of the jurisdiction.

PPP FLIP-FLOPS
While the government has taken the high road in addressing the issue of dual citizens in the National Assembly, the parliamentary opposition has been ‘flip flopping’ on the situation. The Opposition Leader, Bharrat Jagdeo, has sent mixed signals on whether the three PPP MPs with dual citizenship will resign from the National Assembly or relinquish their foreign citizenship. PPP/C’s Chief Whip Gail Teixeira, a Canadian citizen, has been a Member of Parliament since 1992, although the Constitution bars against MPs having dual citizenship. Two other opposition MPs – Adrian Anamayah and Odinga Lumumba, also have citizenship in other countries.

On Wednesday, during his weekly press conference, Jagdeo said the three MPs indicated last week that they will write the Speaker indicating their positions. According to him, they have already written their List Representative, Donald Ramotar. “So last week after my press conference, they all wrote to the representative of the list, who is Ramotar, indicating that they will do so. I suspect by next week they will also submit letters to the Speaker.

Adrian Anamayah will not renounce. He has explained to me that there are family obligations and other issues, so he will not renounce…but Odinga Lumumba and Gail Teixeira will renounce,” Jagdeo told reporters. According to Jagdeo, Teixeira has already initiated the process of renouncing her Canadian citizenship. “Gail Teixeira has shown me the documents. She has filed all the requisite papers and she has received an acknowledgement already and would be awaiting the Canadian authority’s decision on the matter,” the opposition leader said.

CHARRANDASS’ VOTE
The issue of MPs with dual citizenship status became a subject of discussion and legal action last December after Charrandass Persaud, a then Government MP, used his seat in the National Assembly to vote in favour of the opposition-sponsored no-confidence motion, that was intended to topple the government. At the time, the Speaker of the National Assembly, Dr. Barton Scotland, had declared the motion passed by a majority of 33.

Subsequently, a farmer from New Amsterdam, Compton Reid, challenged the validity of the vote on the grounds that Persaud breached the Constitution when he sat in the house as a dual citizen. Reid, through his attorneys, Senior Counsel Rex McKay and Neil Boston, argued that Persaud was not eligible for membership of the National Assembly and ought not to have been in the House on the night of December 21, 2018. While the courts have upheld the vote cast by Persaud, who has since been recalled from the National Assembly, they have indicated that it is unconstitutional to be a MP and hold dual citizenship at the same time.