-cite passage ‘without debate’

THREE months after the Natural Resource Fund (NRF) Bill was passed in the National Assembly, Opposition Chief Whip Christopher Jones and trade unionist Norris Witter have moved to the High Court to challenge its constitutionality.

In recently filed court documents, the two are claiming that the piece of legislation “was passed without debate or scrutiny by the National Assembly,” and is therefore null and void.

Jones and Witter, who is the President of the General Workers Union, through their attorneys Roysdale Forde, S.C, and Selwyn Pieters are seeking judicial review and relief under the Constitution.

The Attorney General, Parliament Office, the Minister of Finance, the Speaker and Clerk of the National Assembly are listed as respondents.

In their grounds for the application, Jones and Witter are of the view that the executive, legislative, and parliament failed to engage in a public consultation prior to the passage of the bill.

The applicants are also contending that there was “no meaningful participation” in the process.

The Guyana Chronicle had previously reported that on December 29, 2021, in a bid to defend the landmark bill, which has since been assented to by President Dr. Irfaan Ali, Senior Minister in the Office of the President with responsibility for Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh, was interrupted by what was referred to as the unparliamentary actions of members of the opposition.

The second reading of the bill was objected to by Jones, who requested that it be sent to a special select committee. However, the Speaker of the National Assembly, Manzoor Nadir, indicated that his preference to listening to the arguments from both sides, before determining whether or not the bill should be sent to a select committee.

Minister Singh then took to the podium, but his presentation was interrupted by members of the APNU+AFC Opposition, who kept banging their desks and chanting demeaning words about the bill.

After they failed to prevent Minister Singh from speaking, Opposition parliamentarian, Annette Ferguson, attempted to remove the Mace, but was unsuccessful.

This unprecedented act was foiled by Nadir’s personal assistant, who held the instrument tightly as he laid on the floor of the conference centre.

Jones and Witter are now seeking a series of declarations from the Demerara High Court. They are asking the court to find that the conduct and/or proceedings of the National Assembly on December 29, 2021, in the absence of the Mace was “ultra vires the Constitution, common law, the constitutional values of the rule of law, democracy, and inclusive governance, unwritten constitutional principles of the rule of law, and the Standing Orders of the National Assembly, illegal, null, void and of no legal effect.”

They are also seeking a declaration from the court to find that the passage of the NRF Bill No. 20 of 2021 by the National Assembly ultra vires.

The applicants are asking the court to grant a declaration that the holding and or continuation of proceedings of the National Assembly on the day in question with the use of a replacement Mace without any approved motion to do so, is ultra vires the Constitution, common law, the constitutional values.

The parties are also seeking to have money taken or distributed from the NRF replenished.