CMC – President David Granger Wednesday said while he has accepted the resignation of the four members of his coalition administration, including the vice president and minister of foreign affairs, Carl Greenidge, their resignations will not take effect immediately as there are several processes which have to be applied.
In a statement, the Office of the President said that Granger wanted to make it clear that the replacement of Members of Parliament (MPs) can be done only when those legislators submit their letters of resignation to the Speaker of the National Assembly as is prescribed by the Guyana Constitution.
Article 156 (1) (A) of the Constitution states that “A member of the National Assembly shall vacate his or her seat therein – if he or she resigns it by writing under his or her own hand addressed to the Speaker or, if the Office of the Speaker if vacant or the Speaker is absent from Guyana, to the Deputy Speaker.”
In addition, Article 156 (3) also outlines the measures to be taken for a parliamentarian to step down, including that person declaring in “in writing to the Speaker or to the Representative of the List from which his or her name was extracted, his or her support for another List”.
The High Court and the Court of Appeal ruled earlier this year that legislators who hold dual citizenships were not qualified to be Members of Parliament in keeping with the Guyana Constitution.
The rulings came as the coalition government challenged the High Court ruling that the motion of con confidence passed in the National Assembly on December 21, last year was valid.
The matter has now gone to the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), Guyana’s highest court, after the Court of Appeal last week in a split decision ruled that the motion should be invalidated.
The four ministers affected by the court rulings are Minister of State, Joseph Harmon, who holds both Guyanese and United States citizenship, Minister of Business Dominic Gaskin, Minister of Public Service Dr. Rupert Roopnarine and Greenidge, all of whom hold Guyanese and British citizenship.
The statement from the Office of the President noted also that Article 156 (4) (a) states that the Speaker shall declare the seat of a Member of the National Assembly vacant where (a) the Speaker receives a written declaration of the Member of the National Assembly as provided for in paragraph 3 (a) or (b) the Representative of the List issues a notice of recall as provided for in paragraph 3 (c)..
Granger said the also wanted to remind the population that the nomination of new members can be done only after the extraction of names from the National Top-Up list is approved by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM).
“As such, the four ministers, Mr. Carl Greenidge, Mr. Joseph Harmon, Mr. Dominic Gaskin and Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine will remain ministers until the aforementioned processes are completed,” the statement said, adding that the President, moreover, has not approved replacements at this time.
The statement said that three of the government ministers “who have since resigned from the National Assembly have indicated that they will renounce their foreign citizenship”. It did not name the ministers.
Meanwhile, in a statement issued late Tuesday night, Cabinet said it was satisfied that the resignation of four ministers fully accords with the decision of the courts.
“For the ensuing period, as is the usual practice, these portfolios would now be held by sitting members of Cabinet who previously acted for these ministers on leave or out of the jurisdiction.”
Cabinet said that while it is conceded that the Constitution strictly bars a person who holds dual citizenship from being an MP, “they are not precluded from remaining in government service.
“This is a matter to be addressed by the President who will finalize ways in which the four resigned MPs will serve in government,” the Cabinet statement said, adding it was looking “forward to names being extracted from the …coalition list of candidates to fill the vacancies of the MPs who have resigned their seats”.
Earlier this week, Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo confirmed that opposition legislators would not resign nor would they attend the sitting of the National Assembly on April 11.
“They will not be at any sitting of the National Assembly. So they don’t have to resign. These four dual citizens…say they will attend the sitting of the National assembly. That will be illegal, immoral and unheard of that you want the Opposition to comply with a ruling but you don’t want to do it”.
The opposition People’s Progressive Party’s (PPP) legislators holding dual citizenship are Gail Teixeira, who has Guyanese and Canadian citizenship, while Odinga Lumumba and Adrian Annamayah have Guyanese American citizenship.
