Gov’t has a strong case – lawyer

Senior Counsel Seenath Jairam said that the government has a strong case in its budget cuts motion in the High Court, arguing that the opposition does not have a right to reduce the budget under the Constitution. His comments came on Tuesday at the conclusion of a hearing into the matter being held before acting Chief Justice Ian Chang.
Jairam has been retained by the Attorney General in the high-profile case. He told media operatives that the Donald Ramotar administration’s position that the opposition cannot slash the budget is correct.
“In my view, if the opposition has a right to reduce the budget, they’ll be frustrating the will of the executive. They don’t have a right to reduce under the Constitution. They may withhold their approval but they don’t have a right to reduce,” he said.
However, the combined opposition  is maintaining that the court cannot order the restoration of the over Gy$20 billion slashed from the national budget as they wrapped up their arguments in response to a government motion to have the National Assembly’s decision reversed.
SC Jairam said that despite the arguments, the government has a strong case, since the opposition’s argument that there is no separation of powers under the Constitution is a constitutional heresy.
“Guyana like all Commonwealth countries always enjoys the separation of powers, that is to say, the executive, the judiciary and the legislative. While he stated that withholding approval of the budget is a different constitutional argument, SC Jairam said that under Article 65, “Parliament may make laws for the peace, order and the good governance of Guyana. You cannot reduce the budget by Gy$1, causing people who are employed by the state agencies to be dismissed through no fault of their own. That is chaos.”  He said, “If monies are not approved how are they to be paid? …Common sense tells us that unless monies are voted for the particular areas, there will have to be dislocation in employment.”
By virtue of an ex parte application by way of affidavit for interim orders filed by Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister Anil Nandlall, government argued that “no power resides in the National Assembly, either in the Committee of Supply, or at all, to move an amendment to reduce any aspect of the Annual Estimates of Revenues and Expenditure laid by the finance minister, and certainly, the National Assembly has no power whatsoever, in proposing a new, or different sum, or any sum at all.”

The application named: Speaker of the House, Raphael Trotman, Opposition Leader David Granger and Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh as defendants.  During a hearing before Acting Chief Justice Ian Chang on Tuesday lawyer representing Trotman and  Granger – Khemraj Ramjattan, Roysdale Forde and Llewelyn John – insisted that the court had no power to order a restoration of the budget.  Ramjattan later told reporters after emerging from Chang’s chambers that he is against the court ordering the finance minister to restore the budget.
According to him the constitutional route has to be the legislature which has to give the authorisation. “The court order is but a bypass to avoid legislative authorisation and we are saying that this entire court matter is misconceived and very heavily flawed,” Ramjattan argued.
Head of the Presidential Secretariat and Cabinet Secretariat Dr Roger Luncheon, who had prepared the application, said that the move by the combined opposition, the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance for Change (AFC), “amounted to an arrogation of powers which the Constitution does not confer upon them, but was also a usurpation of function which the Constitution exclusively resides in the executive, thereby, abrogating the doctrine of separation of powers.”
Nandlall told Guyana Times International that during the chamber hearing they continued to emphasise the point that the opposition does not have the authority to cut the budget, citing several authorities. He argued that the Parliament only has the power to approve or withhold its approval of the budget not to cut it. “And that’s what we are contending.” He said a power of reduction is a draconian one, noting that while the Constitution gives the National Assembly the right to approve – that power of approval cannot by any stretch of the law or imagination involve reduction.
He said when the constitutions of other countries are examined on the issue, the power to reduce is expressively stated. “So it is language more than law. So when they reduced the budget that was done in violation of the Constitution… every constitutional court in the world has the power to rectify a constitutional breach,” Nandlall argued.
When asked how optimistic he was about winning the case, having lost one earlier regarding the composition of the committee of selection, Nandlall responded in the affirmative. He said the same principle, which was employed by Chief Justice to rule against him in the committee motion –that the composition of the committee does not find expressed presence in the Constitution –it was the same argument he is using that “the power of reduction does not find expressed presence in the constitution and the court would be hard to say otherwise.”
Dr Luncheon had said in his application that the role of the executive is to prepare the national budget and that of the National Assembly to approve such. He said changes to the budget prepared by the executive were not provided for in the Constitution of Guyana and as such is ultra vires.