ONE of the political puzzles in Guyana is why the leadership of the party in power or Cabinet members do not respond to the ignorance that is peddled on social media and in the mainstream media. My guess is that ruling politicians are busy and feel that their time is more usefully spent on infusion of national development activities rather than responding to the ignorance of people.
I hold the view that the role of government is to expose such ignorance and educate the nation so they can better understand the nature of their country. I read letters (it is my job) in the press and I noticed a man that signed his name as Shabeer Zafar and he lists his designation as an attorney. I never thought of replying to Mr. Zafar because the contents of his outpourings come within the tradition of anti-government bashing.
But one letter of his irritated me for one reason only: how can a man who says he is a lawyer be so ignorant of the laws of Guyana. Mr. Zafar believes that the law allows Ms. Walton-Desir (AWD) to serve on one the parliamentary committees. The law does not allow this and what makes Mr. Zafar so irritating is that he is a lawyer.
The Standing Orders of Parliament allow for party representation based on a mathematical formula which no MP or the Speaker can change. Only Parliament can do that by changing the Standing Orders. Because her party has one seat, the formula prevents Ms. AWD from being a member of any parliamentary committee.
Mr. Zafar went into non-legal directions to argue for Ms. AWD inclusion. One is his reference to the Standing Orders of other parliaments. The argument for Ms. AWD has to be based on the law governing parliamentary functionism in Guyana. Secondly, Mr. Zafar calls into question the quality of his legal ability when he brings up the election of Lenox Shuman and Asha Kissoon as Deputy Speaker on different occasions even though they both came from small parties just as small as AWD’s party.
This is a terrible analogy and Zafar stole this reasoning from AWD. Both are lawyers and they bring rebuke unto themselves. Shuman and Kissoon were elected as Deputy Speaker of the House based on what the law requires not how small their parties were. Any Member of Parliament can become the Deputy Speaker based on a vote of the total MPs.
At the time, both Shuman and Kissoon were legally seated MPs and therefore could be elected to the deputy’s chair. The Speaker and Ms. Gail Teixeira, the PPP’s Chief Whip did not bend the rules to facilitate Shuman and Kissoon. They simply followed the rules. You may not agree with Ms. Teixeira’s choice and how the PPP’s MPs voted but no legal or constitutional rules were violated.
In the case of AWD, for her to be included in parliamentary committees, the rules rest on numerical representation in parliament. If AWD was accepted by a vote of nomination and Parliament had agreed then, Ms AWD was facilitated over and above the law. And why should the Speaker not intervene if that had happened, after all, he is the custodian of the Standing Orders.
Mr. Zafar again called his legal training into question when he cited a visa case involving his family. One finds Mr. Zafar annoying because he simply disregards the line separating what is legal from what is non-legal. He argues a case for AWD to be included because he cites an example of how the Canadian Parliament operates.
He writes that he got an MP to raise a petition in Parliament for his wife to be given a visa so that his child could be born in Canada. The MP brought the matter to Parliament and his wife got the visa. What is the relevance of this to the AWD case in Guyana’s Parliament? The answer is none. The Canadian Parliament could not and did give his wife a visa.
The only person who legally could have done that was the Minister of Immigration. What the Minister did was to accept the sentiment of parliament. But the Minister could have refused and the parliamentarians could not have done anything. Parliament could only have pleaded with the Minister but could not have compelled him to issue the visa. A majority vote in the American Senate for a visa issuance could be rejected by the Secretary of Homeland Security.
This line of reasoning by Zafar is completely irrelevant to understanding the AWD issue in the Guyana Parliament. People like Zafar and AWD will be the first to hit the roof if a Guyanese Cabinet Minister or President acts above the law. It is called hypocrisy.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.
