“Constitutional Court will become political operating arm”

The Progressive Reform Party (VHP) strongly suspects that deliberate actions were taken to keep the opposition from getting ist candidates on the Constitutional Court.

“The entire process of presenting candidates from Parliament to sending the list to the Office of the President was carried out in a very questionable way,” said the chairman of the VHP, Chandrikapersad Santokhi. “As it turned out the chairwoman either kept us in the dark about what was going to happen or that the entire process was controlled by the Office of the President without the involvement of the chairwoman,” said MP Santokhi, the leader of the opposition, who added that the candidates of the coalition where presented at a closed session although this was not on the agenda. “A week prior to the discussion of this matter, all the leaders of the factions had a meeting which was chaired by the chairwoman. This matter was never mentioned at the meeting by the chairwoman. It was only mentioned after it had been discussed in the closed meeting. Although it was not on the agenda, the coalition presented its candidates. The opposition had to identify and present its candidates at a fast pace so that these names could also be sent to the president. It is very noticeable that only the candidates of the NDP were discussed, approved and sent to the president. The candidates of the opposition were never even discussed. The chairwoman simply stated that those candidates would be discussed next year. So in 2020. This is a clear indication of mismanagement and using one’s power at random.”

Most of the candidates from the opposition were selected by the VHP. None of those candidates have been discussed while those from the coalition are already in the final phase. The coalition claimed that a wrong picture is being given about the process and explained that the candidates from the candidates were not nominated according to the legal requirements. It is unclear for which position each candidate from the opposition has been nominated. The opposition only presented the names while the coalition included the specifics for each candidate.

MP Santokhi pointed out that people should wait until all of the formalities have been finalized in parliament and a final selection has been made. “This Constitutional Court will become an operating arm of the coalition and the government. It will be an operating arm of the NDP and that is regrettable and condemnable. We condemn the entire the procedure of parliament. We now have a Constitutional Court that does not have enough support in parliament.”