Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall cited the legal maxim, “One cannot benefit from his/her own wrong” in his recent commentary on the legal proceedings filed by the Opposition Chief Whip, Christopher Jones and Trade Unionist, Norris Witter to quash, four months later, the passage of the nation’s Natural Resources Fund (amendment) Bill.
According to Nandlall, to play a part in the removal of the Speaker’s Mace and then claim that its absence renders the bill’s passage illegal is tantamount to mischievousness and an attempt to waste the court’s time. He said that further insult to injury is that taxpayers’ monies will now have to be spent on fighting a challenge he deemed unmeritorious.
The AG added that this petition now sets troubling precedence that opposition parliamentarians can intentionally disrupt a sitting and then seek legal relief based on that interruption. Nandlall likened the scenario to that of a brother who murders his eldest sibling and then uses the death to benefit from inheritance.
The NRF bill was passed last December amid an in-house fracas that erupted when Opposition parliamentarians initiated a protest action that followed a tug-of-war between parliament staffers and People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) Member, Annette Ferguson, who sought to cease the mace in a bid to stop proceedings. In the end, the mace was damaged, and a replica was used to pass the bill. This “mock mace” is one of the several grounds upon which the petitioners have cited constitutes an “illegal” passage.
The incident has left a bitter taste in the mouth of many Guyanese as the shocking spectacle was broadcasted live from the hallowed walls of the House, amid a cacophony of whistle shrills and cries that the bill was a “thieving” one. The PNCR Leader, Aubrey Norton later said that the attempt at disruption was warranted and that the resistance to the bill’s passage was done for the sake of Guyanese and future generations.
