Black Immigrant Daily News

The four males whose getaway car was intercepted by the police minutes after they robbed a man on Braeton main road in Portmore, St Catherine, on Friday, October 14, have been charged.

Two 15-year-old boys are among the four.

Charged along with the two boys are 22-year-old Janiel Lewin, otherwise called ‘Harry’, of Passagefort Drive, Portmore in St Catherine, and 2. 19-year-old Khiel Morrison, otherwise called ‘British’, of Harbour Heights, Harbour View in Kingston 17.

Reports from the Portmore police are that at about 9:20 pm, a man and his girlfriend were walking along the roadway when the four attacked them with knives and robbed the man of a bag he was carrying that contained a laptop and a wallet with cash and bank cards.

The robbers then escaped in a motor car. The police were alerted and through quick coordinated efforts, the getaway car was intercepted along Dawkins Drive in the parish minutes later. All four were arrested and the motor vehicle was seized.

The stolen items were also recovered. Two of the four gave voluntary statements to the police.

All four were interviewed in the presence of their attorney. They were then charged with robbery with aggravation and conspiracy to rob. All four will appear in the Spanish Town Parish Court on Tuesday, October 25.

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The People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government will be bringing amendments to the Representation of the People Act (RoPA) Bill, which will provide critical amendments to Guyana’s electoral laws, to the National Assembly in a month or two.

This was revealed by Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo, during a recent interview that was broadcast on his social media page. According to Jagdeo, these amendments will address a number of loopholes, that allowed elements within the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to attempt to rig the 2020 General and Regional Elections.

“In the new law that is going to Parliament, to be passed within the matter of a month or two, the polling places have to be identified long before and notified to the political parties. For every number of individuals, let’s say 500 individuals, there must be a polling place and it must be close to where they live,” the Vice President explained.

While listing some of the other reforms that will be brought, such as random placement of polling officials, publishing of election manuals and real-time uploading of Statements of Poll (SoPs), he also pointed out that the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) do not want these reforms to the electoral laws.

“Before you start tabulating votes at the regional level, all the Statements of Poll have to be uploaded by GECOM. So, if you have a good calculator, by 7:00 in the morning if everything is uploaded the same night, every citizen should be able to know who won the elections,” Jagdeo said.

“A number of other things (will be) fixed. And serious penalties for breaches. So, the law is now before us. APNU doesn’t want that passed. They issued a statement that they’re opposed to any changes in RoPA. So, this making election more transparent and holding public officials more accountable and closing all loopholes for capricious action.”

It was announced a few days ago that the Parliamentary Affairs and Governance Ministry will be convening a national stakeholders’ consultation on the draft amendments to Guyana’s electoral laws on October 25, at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre in Liliendaal, Greater Georgetown.

This consultation is an integral element of the Government of Guyana’s commitment to implement a consultative, inclusive, and participatory process regarding electoral reform. The Ministry said in its statement that the stakeholder consultation formed part of a continuous consultative process, which began on November 6, 2021, when the Ministry published the draft Representation of the People (Amendment) (RoPA) Bill and the draft regulations made under the Representation of the People Act on its social media pages.

As such, the public was invited to peruse the draft documents and submit feedback to the Ministry within six weeks; however, after requests for extensions, the Ministry accommodated submissions of feedback well into 2022.

Recommendations were received from a variety of stakeholders including civil society actors, the Guyana Elections Commission, some political parties, and interested individuals and organisations. These recommendations were consolidated and provided to the Attorney General, who in May 2022, facilitated in-person meetings with the respondents.

Updated versions of the RoPA Bill and Regulations have been made available once again. and the new draft amendments to the National Registration Act have also been made accessible for public perusal via a link published on the Ministry’s Facebook pages. To this end, 157 organisations have been invited to the upcoming consultation on October 25.

These organisations represent a broad cross-section of society including political parties; constitutional bodies; civil society organisations in the labour movement; private sector, faith-based, youth, women, LGBTQ, ethnic/cultural, health and rehabilitation organisations; and other civil society actors.

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With national stakeholder consultations on constitutional reform expected to start after the Constitutional Reform Commission is in place, Attorney General Anil Nandlall, SC, is hopeful that the method for appointing the Chancellor and Chief Justice is one of the many things examined and pronounced on.

He made these observations while participating in a virtual town hall meeting set up by the University of the West Indies Cave Hill campus which dealt with constitutional reform and the judicial selection process.

Noting that a two-thirds majority is needed in the National Assembly to make changes to the Constitution, the Attorney General was hopeful that the recommendations that do come out of the constitutional reform consultations, find bipartisan support.

“Guyana is poised to go on a wide-ranging constitutional reform process. Which is going to involve the establishment of a broad-based constitutional commission, that will do widespread consultations across the country,” he said.

“And hopefully, one of the provisions which will be microscopically examined in this process is the very article that speaks to the appointment of a Chancellor and Chief Justice. And hopefully, we will get recommendations out of that process that will find political consensus.”

According to the Attorney General, Guyana is possibly the only country in the Commonwealth where the Head of State and the Leader of the Opposition have to agree on a common candidate before that person can be confirmed. He noted that with this constitutional change, confirmations to the two most senior positions in the Judiciary have been gridlocked.

“We are perhaps the only country in the Commonwealth, where the Chief Justice and the Chancellor are to be appointed by the President, the head of the Executive, only upon agreement from the Leader of the Opposition. And that’s a constitutional formula embedded in our Constitution, entrenched in the most profound way.”

“And since that change occurred, the reality unfortunately is that we have never been able to appoint a Chancellor, nor a Chief Justice substantially to those offices. Because we have never been able to secure an agreement between the President and the Leader of the Opposition,” Nandlall said.

Nandlall pointed out that since 2005, retired Justice Desiree Bernard was the last confirmed Chancellor before she was appointed to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). Meanwhile, retired Justice Carl Singh was Guyana’s last confirmed Chief Justice, in addition to being acting Chancellor, before he retired from that role in 2017.

“Acting appointments can be made in the face of a deadlock or failure to achieve an agreement by meaningful consultation between the President and the Leader of the Opposition. The other Judges in the Judiciary are appointed in the conventional method that obtains in the rest of the Caribbean. That is to say, the recommendation comes from a Judicial Service Commission, and the appointments are made by the President.”

He expressed the belief that while amendments were brought into the Constitution in 1999 that protected the Judiciary, it is also important for the conversation to continue on how to improve on these amendments.

“I believe there is a strong connection between an independent Judiciary, which includes the process by which the Judiciary is appointed, and the democratic equation. As the conversation goes on, we can continue to deal with what obtains now in Guyana, having regard to the non-appointment of these two positions and the way decisions are unfolding, in particular in political type cases,” Nandlall said.

Back in August of this year, the Government presented the Constitution Reform Commission Bill 2022 in the National Assembly, which seeks the establishment of a Constitution Reform Commission to review the country’s supreme laws.

According to the explanatory memorandum of the Bill, the proposed Constitution Reform Commission will consist of 20 members who will be drawn from the governing People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), the opposition A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) and one member from political party A New and United Guyana (ANUG).

One member each will also be drawn from the Guyana Bar Association, the Labour Movement, the National Toshaos Council, the private sector, representatives of women organisations, youth organisations, Christian, Hindu, and Muslim organisations, as well as nominees representing farmers.

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Former Treasury chief Rishi Sunak won the race to be leader of the Conservative Party on Monday and will become Britain’s next prime minister — the third this year.

The former Treasury chief will be Britain’s first leader of colour, and faces the task of stabilising the party and country at a time of economic and political turbulence.

His only rival, Penny Mordaunt, conceded and withdrew.

As leader of the governing party, he will take over as prime minister from Liz Truss, who quit last week after 45 tumultuous days in office.

Sunak had been the strong favourite as the governing Conservative Party sought stability at a time of immense economic challenges and after months of chaos that consumed the past two leaders.

Sunak’s position strengthened after former leader Boris Johnson dropped out of the Conservative Party leadership contest. The party is choosing Britain’s third prime minister this year following Liz Truss’ resignation after a turbulent 45-day term.

Sunak lost out to Truss in the last Conservative election, but his party and the country now appear eager for a safe pair of hands to tackle soaring energy and food prices and a looming recession. The politician steered the economy through the coronavirus pandemic, winning praise for his financial support for laid-off workers and shuttered businesses.

He has promised “integrity, professionalism and accountability” if he forms a government — a nod to the growing to desire for a leader who can tackle the country’s problems.

Earlier in the day, the 42-year-old was the only candidate with confirmed support from more than 100 lawmakers, the number needed to run in the election, with his backers claiming he has been endorsed by more than half the 357 Conservative lawmakers in Parliament. Mordaunt had hoped to reach the threshold by the time nominations closed — but she backed out.

That means Sunak is now the Conservative Party leader and will be asked by King Charles III to form a government. He will become the prime minister in a handover of power from Truss later Monday or on Tuesday.

Sunak, who was Treasury chief from 2020 until this summer, quit in July in protest at Johnson’s leadership.

Johnson dramatically quit the race on Sunday night, ending a short-lived, high-profile attempt to return to the prime minister’s job he was ousted from little more than three months ago amid ethics scandals.

Johnson spent the weekend trying to gain support from fellow Conservative lawmakers after flying back from a Caribbean vacation. Late Sunday he said he had amassed the backing of 102 colleagues. But he was far behind Sunak in support, and said he had concluded that “you can’t govern effectively unless you have a united party in Parliament.”

The prospect of a return by Johnson had thrown the already divided Conservative Party into further turmoil. He led the party to a thumping election victory in 2019, but his premiership was clouded by scandals over money and ethics that eventually became too much for the party to bear.

In his Sunday statement, Johnson insisted he was “well placed to deliver a Conservative victory” in the next national election, due by 2024. And he said that he likely would have won a ballot of Conservative Party members against either of his rivals.

“But in the course of the last days I have sadly come to the conclusion that this would simply not be the right thing to do,” he said.

He hinted he might be back, however, saying: “I believe I have much to offer but I am afraid that this is simply not the right time.”

Truss quit Thursday after a turbulent 45 days in office, conceding that she could not deliver on her botched tax-cutting economic package, which she was forced to abandon after it sparked fury within her party and weeks of turmoil in financial markets.

The Conservative Party turmoil is fueling demands for a national election. Under Britain’s parliamentary system, there does not need to be one until the end of 2024, though the government has the power to call one sooner.

Currently, that looks unlikely. Opinion polls say an election would spell disaster for the Conservatives, with the left-of-centre Labour Party winning a large majority.

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By JILL LAWLESS Associated Press

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