By Stabroek News
Copyright stabroeknews
Dear Editor,
In his column (Sep 14), Neville Bissember identified several “things”, that he advises should be “fixed” by the next elections presumably by legislation. Some are good ideas. Without commenting on the merits or demerits of each or giving endorsement to any, I would like to add two areas that parliament should address. They are defects or flaws in the constitution relating to ROPA. The constitution prohibits independents to run for office and the constitution compels a candidate (or party) to run for both geographic and top up seats. An individual or a party cannot run for just for top up seats or geographic seats; he or a party must run for both.
A person may not wish to have affiliation with a party but to run as an independent, unaligned candidate. It is not possible under ROPA to seek office as an independent, in contravention of natural rights and or other rights granted in the constitution free from association with others. The Privy Council had ruled on freedom of rights of association. A similar law existed in South Africa under the 1994 constitution. It was challenged in court in 2020, and it was deemed to be unconstitutional with the court in 2023 stating that “it infringed the right to freedom of association, dignity of a person, right to stand for office, and the right to freedom of conscience”.
The legislature fixed the issue, allowing independents to seek elective office just before the elections in 2024. South Africa has a similar electoral system or arrangement as Guyana – PR system with the seats divided up in terms of regions and national (or top up) with both divided 50%-50% or 200-200 seats each.
The right to run as an independent is similar to the right of a candidate (or party) to run only for a geographic seat in a particular region and not for top up or to run for a top up seat but not for a geographic seat or to run for both. A party may have an interest to contest only in a few regions like 1, 7, 8, 9 – the so called indigenous regions. The constitution violates the rights of voters in those regions. ROPA commands that a party runs for at least six regions but a party may not be able to gather signatures to contest seats in other regions or vice versa. A party may not be interested in running for six regions but less. This is also unconstitutional as it violates rights of association.
The fact of the matter is that ROPA restricts the “rights of association” and worse compels people “to association”. On the face of it, it is unconstitutional as ruled in court cases in Trinidad, India, South Africa, and at the Privy Council. A challenge to ROPA will succeed at the CCJ as no judge will deny the right of an individual on freedom of association.
Vishnu Bisram
