Some constitutional agencies being politicised, says Attorney-General
Attorney-General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall, S.C
Attorney-General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall, S.C

ATTORNEY-GENERAL and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall, S.C., have posited that constitutional agencies, which ought to be impartial as stipulated by the constitution, are being politicised.

Nandlall during his television programme ‘Issues in the News’ on Tuesday last, explained that persons at the helm of the Public Service Commission, Police Service Commission and Teaching Service Commission have joined with politicians to file political litigation, demonstrating political alignment.

One of the cases in point is a Fixed Date Application filed by opposition members of Parliament Ganesh Mahipaul and Corretta McDonald, General-Secretary of the Guyana Teachers Union, on February 22, 2021, contending that the recent amendments to the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act (FMAA) are unconstitutional.

A Notice of Application was also filed along with the Fixed Date Application in an attempt to maintain the status quo until the contentions in the Fixed Date Application are heard and a decision rendered.

Justice Nareshwar Harnanan, sitting in the High Court of the Supreme Court of Judicature on March 5, 2021, dismissed the Notice of Application which sought a number of Orders prohibiting the consideration and approval of budgets for constitutional agencies and disbursements of budgetary sums to those agencies.

In the case, Mahipaul and McDonald are being represented by Attorney-at-law Roysdale Forde, S.C, appearing in association with a battery of lawyers from the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC).

The other applicants in the matter are First-Vice President of the Guyana Public Service Union, Dawn Gardner; Chairman of the Public Service Commission, Michael Somersall; member of the Police Service Commission, Clinton Conway; and Chairman of the Teaching Service Commission, Allan Munroe.

The constitution of Guyana lists the Teaching Service Commission, the Public Service Commission, the Police Service Commission and the Judicial Service Commission as ‘Service Commissions.’

“The constitution says that they are independent and that, that independence must be respected, but here it is they have pulled off their masks and they are now openly political… they are signalling to the work [sic] that they are politically partisan,” Nandlall said.

“That is a violation of the constitution of itself, but these people want you to treat them with impartiality and independence, yet they are openly embracing political, partisan postures and they are now part of a political government,” he added.

The Attorney-General noted that political alignment will inevitably cloud the way these individuals are supposed to impartially discharge the functions of their office.

“That is why you have that implosion in the Police Force now, now the public should see that there may be a sound basis for these policemen who are claiming that they are the subject of discrimination and political victimisation by the Police Service Commission,” Nandlall said.

He highlighted that while it is a person’s right to be able to choose whichever political party they want to associate with, that person should not let their association infringe on an independent office he/she holds.

“I have no problem if they would like to be a politician… that is their right, that’s their freedom, but you can’t want to be a politician and then masquerade as an independent constitutional office holder, that is hypocrisy, that is wrong,” he said.

He noted that in this particular situation, through the Notice of Application which was dismissed, the applicants sought to halt budgetary sums allocated to their offices; even though they are being paid from the public coffers.

In the matter, Nandlall had argued that if the Orders sought by Forde were granted, the constitutional agencies listed as defendants, including the Supreme Court of Guyana, would be deprived of their allocations, thereby threatening their ability to offer the various essential public services they provide to the Guyanese people

“That wrong and hypocrisy must be exposed because you are receiving public monies under the false pretence that you are impartial, sabotaging your own budget, you don’t care about your own budget not being granted, you’re joining political forces to ensure that your budget is not granted,” Nandlall said.

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