Problems for the “de facto” Speaker of the National Assembly Manzoor Nadir are multiplying daily. The Opposition APNU+AFC has filed a ‘No Confidence Motion’ against him in the National Assembly. If that was not enough, a legal challenge to his Speakership is brewing.
Former Junior Finance Minister Jaipaul Sharma, in a post on his Facebook page recently, declared: “The election of PPP/C candidate, Mr. Manzoor Nadir as Speaker of the National Assembly is unlawful by virtue of him sitting in the National Assembly as NON-ELECTED Speaker and Member of Parliament.” The former MP further stated that Mr. Nadir is not a lawful Member of the Parliament, since his membership is by virtue of his unlawful election as Speaker of the National Assembly.
According to Jaipaul, the Speaker is regarded as a Member of Parliament, can have voting rights if he/she is extracted from the list of elected members of a political party in the National Assembly but if the Speaker was not extracted from the list of candidates of a political party, he/she is not eligible to vote in the National Assembly. “I am contending that the election of Mr. Manzoor Nadir was done in violation of Article 56 (2) of the Constitution of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, since he is sitting as both an elected and non-elected member of the National Assembly.”
Article 56 (2) states, “The Speaker may be elected either from among the members of the Assembly who are not Ministers or Parliamentary Secretaries or from among persons who are not members of the Assembly but are qualified for election as members. On April 20th last year Chief Justice (ag), Roxane George, SC, handed done a landmark decision, ruling that Members of Parliament (MPs) cannot be elected and non-elected members at the same time; a ruling that rendered as unlawful, the appointment of Sarah Browne and Vikash Ramkissoon as Parliamentary Secretaries by President Irfaan Ali.
The Chief Justice said it cannot be accepted that as elected MPs, they have been appointed to the National Assembly as if they were not and without voting rights. “The issue is not whether they can be in the National Assembly. Membership of the National Assembly is the issue,” she had said. Similarly, it is not whether Manzoor Nadir can be in the National Assembly. It is his membership of the National Assembly that is the issue.
Like Browne and Ramkissoon, Manzoor Nadir is an elected member of the National Assembly who is illegally squatting in the seat of Speaker, under the pretense of being a non-elected member of the honorable house. “…can the third and fourth respondents [Sarah Browne and Vikash Ramkissoon] be members of the National Assembly despite being elected non extracted members? I think not,” the Chief Justice said as she handed down her decision.
More, In The Ring.
