Harmon says nothing in CCJ ruling preventing Cabinet meetings
-after gov’t about-face
Despite the finding of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) that the PPP/Csponsored no-confidence motion against government was validly passed on December 21st, President David Granger and his Cabinet are continuing to meet and make decisions and spokesman Joseph Harmon yesterday said the administration has seen nothing that says it should do otherwise.
“We have seen nothing in the ruling of the CCJ that says that Cabinet should not meet and in fact Article [106 (6) and 106 (7)] speaks to the president and the government remaining in office and so this question of clarification, whether the Cabinet meets or not, is in fact one of the submissions made to the CCJ for them to give clarity. So, we will await the clarification,” Harmon, the Director General of the Ministry of the Presidency, said yesterday when asked if Cabinet was still meeting.
He was at the time responding to questions from the media at a postCabinet press briefing, which was the first such briefing held since the court’s announcement of its findings on the motion.
The court found that the no-confidence motion was validly passed with the votes of 33 members of the 65-member National Assembly last December, thereby compelling the resignation of Cabinet and the holding of general elections.
During the reading of the decision, CCJ President Justice Adrian Saunders had adverted to direction given in the Constitution on what is to happen if government is defeated on a confidence vote brought against it. Article 106 (6) of the Constitution states, “The Cabinet including the President shall resign if the Government is defeated by the vote of a majority of all the elected members of the National Assembly on a vote of confidence.” Article 106 (7) adds, “Notwithstanding its defeat, the Government shall remain in office and shall hold an election within three months, or such longer period as the National Assembly shall by resolution supported by not less than two-thirds of the votes of all the elected members of the National Assembly determine, and shall resign after the President takes the oath of office following the election.”
Pressed on why Cabinet is still meeting, Harmon, who is an attorney by profession and has many years of legal experience under his belt, yesterday reiterated that the administration was awaiting “clarity.” “As I said, the CCJ will give clarity to what it has said. There are submissions that have been made to it and we expect that in its ruling on the 12th of July that the CCJ will clarify these matters [but] as it stands right now, we have seen nothing that says that the Cabinet should not meet,” he noted, while referencing the date set for orders to be made based on the court’s findings.
Harmon further said that government is not worried that the actions it has taken would be voided if the CCJ clarifies that Cabinet should not be meeting. “It is our duty as a government to govern and therefore every single day that we are in government we have to execute the mandate of government and ensure that the people’s business is taken care of,” he said.
However, the government’s position is at variance with its earlier posture, when the validity of the motion was still the subject of an appeal in the local court system.
Following the initial ruling in the High Court by Chief Justice (Ag) Roxane George that the motion was validly passed and should have triggered the immediate resignation of the
Cabinet, Harmon himself announced in February that Cabinet would not be meeting.
“It is noted that there is a judgment of the Court that was made with respect to the Cabinet and that judgment is appealed but we do not have a stay of the judgment as yet and, therefore, we have not held Cabinet meetings as such…,” Harmon had told a press conference in February.
Up until the Court of Appeal overturned the High Court’s decision, Ministerial plenaries, chaired by the President and comprising all of the ministers, met. Harmon had maintained then that the plenaries had all of the powers that a Cabinet could have.
When the lower court’s ruling was overturned in March, government announced that it cleared the way for Cabinet to resume meeting.
Making reference to Harmon’s announcement in February, the opposition People’s Progressive Party earlier this week accused the government of duplicity when it was revealed that Cabinet was still meeting.
“If the Coalition Government accepted the High Court’s declaration of the no-confidence motion as valid, why is there not similar acceptance of the ruling from the Caribbean Court of Justice, which is Guyana’s final Court? Does the Coalition not intend to comply with the ruling of the Caribbean Court of Justice?” the party questioned in a statement issued on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, with Harmon announcing yesterday that Cabinet had approved three bills for tabling in the National Assembly in addition to giving no objections to a dozen multi-million dollar contracts, he was asked whether a parliamentary session was being planned for the near future. He said government expects the National Assembly to meet. “Parliament has not been prorogued or anything like that, so we expect that with the correct amount of work to be done in the National Assembly, that the National Assembly will be called to conduct its business in a normal way,” he said before adding that he could not say how soon a session would be held. “I can’t tell you what is being planned but certainly once there is a certain number of bills and matters to be dealt with in the National Assembly, they will indicate based on the programme of the National Assembly…,” he added.
He noted that the preparation of bills and the filing of matters in the National Assembly, are the normal functions of government. “We will continue to perform those functions until such a time that there is a clear decision that says you should not do it,” he said.