An advertisement last week for a secretary for the Constitution Reform Commission (CRC) has reminded the public that constitution reform is on the agenda. The CRC was appointed on 3 April 2024. Elections in Guyana are due on or before 2 November 2025. The delay so far does not suggest that the CRC will be in a position to commence its first hearing before 2025 has begun, or is about to begin. Preparations for the elections campaign will also be about to begin and by the time the work of the CRC is in high gear, so will be the elections campaign. Few would be interested in constitutional reform.
The CRC would have another problem. The agenda has been set by the Constitution Reform Commission Act 2022 (CRC Act 2022) which provides that it must take into account: fundamental rights; rights if indigenous people; rights of children; eliminating discrimination; improving race relations and ethnic security and equal opportunity; ensuring that the views of minorities in decision-making and in governing are given due consideration; reforms to elections and the Elections Commission and the method of electing the chair and members; protecting the economic, social and cultural rights of Guyanese; methods to maintain and strengthen the independence of the judiciary; measures to safeguard public funds and maintain and enhance integrity in public life; measures to enhance the functioning, capacity and effectiveness of the National Assembly; the functioning, capacity and effectiveness of the local government system. The Act also mandates wide consultation. It is to be noted that the functions do not include recommendations for a “national, inclusive, governance model” as promised in the PPP/C elections manifesto.
The CRC Act 2022 proposes an agenda, as outlined above, which is identical to that provided by the CRC Act 1999, which established the CRC of 1999. At the risk of boring the reader, I set out the matters that the CRC of 1999 was required to consider: fundamental rights; the rights of indigenous people; the rights of children; eliminating discrimination; improving race relations and promoting ethnic security and equal opportunity; measures to ensure that the views of minorities in the decision making process and conduct of government are given due consideration; reforms to the elections commission, its composition and electing its chair and members; securing and protecting the economic, social and cultural rights of Guyanese; safeguarding public funds and enhancing integrity in public life; the functioning of the National Assembly; the functioning of the local government system. Not only are the functions of the current CRC 2022 the same as those of the CRC of 1999, but they are set out in the same sequence and expressed in language so identical that the suggestion that they have been the subject of wholesale plagiarizing is inescapable.
The Report of the CRC, which was presented to the National Assembly, and later unanimously adopted, gave rise to a series of constitutional amendments mainly in 2001 to give effect to the recommendations. Among the bodies established, although these are only some of the measures adopted are: The Ethnic Relations Commission, the Human Rights Commission ( which has never been established), the Women and Gender Equality Commission, the Indigenous Peoples Commission, the Rights of the Child Commission, the Public Procurement Commission, five standing parliamentary committees, financial independence for the judiciary and several other bodies, Article 13 on participation in the decision-making process and the establishment of an inclusionary democracy and several others, including reform of the electoral system. While some bodieshave not been established, others are not functioning either at all or optimally and many recommendations have not been implemented, the question that needs to be asked is: Is the current CRC going to merely revise and/or second guess the work of the CRC of 1999? If so, is a CRC required at all? An inquiry into the adequacy of the 1999 reforms, and their efficacy, would have been more appropriate. Since the work the CRC 2022 is required to do has already been done by the CRC 1999, the current constitutional reform process should be scrapped or amended to deal with the real issues that have troubled Guyanese since at least 1980.
No matter how much the Government and others try to sell the 1980 constitution as being one of the best in the world, although substantially amended, it is regarded by many Guyanese to be irretrievably tainted because it was a fraudulent imposition on the Guyanese people by a dictatorial PNC government through a dictatorial process which never had the support of the Guyanese people. The struggle to remove the requirement for a referendum to amend the constitution in 1979 was a high point in the anti-dictatorial struggle in Guyana. It was in 1980, the year the constitution was imposed, that Walter Rodney, a prominent leader of the 1979 struggle, was assassinated. Many see the 1980 constitution as a tainted document which should be completely scrapped. A new constitution in “simple language,” as proposed by the PPP/C’s manifesto, could take its place.
There are then two fundamental issues that constitution reform has to address by popular demand since 1980, namely, the powers of the President and a “national, inclusive, governance model” as promised in the PPP/C’s elections manifesto.