To prorogue of dissolve?

The British High Commissioner to Guyana on Monday threatened to have Guyana be sanctioned by the Commonwealth if the President does not end the Prorogation Order he issued last November.

This latest explicit threat followed a call a few days ago by the British Foreign Office for the prorogation to be ended “as soon as possible”. It is clear that the British are ratcheting up the pressure on the Guyana Government to end the prorogation.

What is also clear is that the British are threatening to impose sanctions unilaterally by simply invoking the “Commonwealth Charter” as if the Commonwealth is still its Empire on which the “sun never sets”.

Today, the Commonwealth is an organisation of independent states, and these states will have to come together and vote on whatever action Britain is contemplating. Long gone are the days when the British Prime Minister could tell the Queen, as Head of the Empire, to declare sanctions or expulsion unilaterally.

Each independent member of the Commonwealth has a Constitution that governs their political processes. In Guyana, as in most Commonwealth jurisdictions like England, the reserve power of the Head of State to prorogue Parliament is part of the Constitution.

Canadian Governments in the last decade have prorogued their Parliament on at least three occasions – through the Governor General who is the Queen’s direct representative.

The British High Commissioner to Canada did not warn the Canadian Governments of Commonwealth sanctions – even though the reason for prorogation in one instance was to prevent the passing of a No-Confidence Motion that would have dissolved Parliament and precipitated general elections, just as in Guyana.

The facts behind the prorogations were debated quite widely in Canada and the Queen’s Governor General offered his comments as to why he went along to order them on the advice of the Prime Minister. In each instance, it had to do with the fact that prorogation was a valid power of the Head of State.

However it was conceded that in the tradition of the parliamentary system to which all Commonwealth countries are heirs, the prorogation cannot be of infinite duration.

The Commonwealth Charter has not pronounced conclusively on the duration of a prorogation, even though the High Commissioner implies otherwise. As in trite law, one suspects it would be a period that reasonable peers would consider sufficient for the Government to deal with the immediate reasons for the prorogation.

In Guyana, the President made it pellucid that he accepts this tradition and declared he would end the prorogation and schedule general elections “early” this year. The President had announced very clearly, following precedent from other jurisdictions such as Canada, his reasons for prorogation.

Most specifically, against the background of the Opposition’s threat to go ahead with its Vote of No-Confidence, the President identified several pressing matters, such as the Telecommunications Bill and the Anti-Money Laundering/Countering of Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Bill, that they would have liked to be passed before elections, since they were critical to the development of the country.

The President offered to give the Opposition a breathing space so that possible saner and calmer heads might prevail. Now that the Opposition has definitively rejected any truce in their declared war to “depose” the Government, we also call upon the Government to call their bluff and announce the holding of General Elections as soon as possible. Not to do so, would offer countries such as Britain and the US, which have shown themselves to be firmly on the side of the Opposition, to raise the red herrings of sanctions and other threats.

When the PPP/C was winning elections by large majorities, the criticism of the Opposition, echoed by those countries was that for “real democracy” elections were not enough. Now that the last elections have shown that the PPP/C may be vulnerable, suddenly elections are the panacea for the salvation of Guyana.