By Roysdale Forde S.C- On October 6, 1980, Guyana’s current Constitution was thrust upon a nation still reeling from the scars of colonial subjugation and the bitter ethnic schisms that had defined its post-independence trajectory. Enacted under the People’s National Congress (PNC), this foundational document proclaimed Guyana as “an indivisible, secular, democratic sovereign state in the course of transition from capitalism to socialism.” It was a moment of audacious political leadership.
Fast-forward to 2022, and the echoes of that unfulfilled pledge reverberate louder than ever. The people of Guyana were solemnly assured that our constitutional edifice, creaking under the weight of obsolescence, would be subjected to rigorous scrutiny. The Constitution Reform Commission Act 2022 (Bill No. 18/2022), assented to on November 15, 2022, birthed a Commission with an unambiguous mandate: “to review the Constitution of Guyana to provide for the current and future rights, duties, liabilities, and obligations of the Guyanese people.”
Among its sweeping functions: soliciting and sifting public submissions for amendments; tabling recommendations to the National Assembly; dissecting electoral architecture, including the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM)’s composition, the opaque selection of its chair and members, and its adjudicative reach; and confronting the spectral injustices afflicting indigenous peoples’ land rights, children’s protections, the scourge of discrimination, and the fractured sinews of ethnic harmony.
The Bill’s odyssey through the National Assembly – introduced on August 8, 2022, after publication on July 28 – signaled a rare bipartisan flicker of hope amid perennial partisan gridlock. Yet, by April 3, 2024, when 18 of the intended 21 commissioners took their oaths, the momentum had already curdled into inertia. The full complement remains elusive, hamstrung by opposition nominees in limbo and a hasty legislative patch to inflate membership from 20 to 21, underscoring not resolve but administrative torpor.
What of the fiscal arsenal marshalled for this crusade? Transparency, that cornerstone of accountable governance, remains a phantom. The 2025 national budget lavished G$218.9 million upon the Commission, a not-insubstantial sum in a republic where public coffers strain under oil-fueled ambitions. Preceding years whispered of preparatory largesse: 2023’s “some G$150 million” earmarked for foundational scaffolding, including the leasing and outfitting of the Middle Street edifice to shelter the Secretariat and its principals.
Still, the ledger is shrouded in fog. No comprehensive ledger discloses cumulative expenditures- the chasm between budgeted windfalls and actual disbursements, the granular breakdown of funds funneled into consultations, research, or outreach. In an era where every dollar from ExxonMobil’s spigots is politicised, this opacity breeds suspicion: Has the Commission’s coffers fueled progress, or merely padded the machinery of delay? As internationally renowned jurist Alexander Hamilton presciently warned in The Federalist Papers, “The complete independence of the courts of justice is peculiarly essential in a limited constitution” – a precept that extends to reform bodies, whose autonomy demands fiscal candour to safeguard against executive overreach.
As of September 2025 – three years post-enactment, over a year since partial inauguration – the Commission’s harvest is barren. No seismic proposals for amendments grace the public domain; no synthesised tapestry of nationwide submissions illuminates the path forward; no ironclad timeline charts the voyage to National Assembly ratification. The lacunae are not mere chronological hiccups but indictments of systemic lassitude. Electoral overhauls, ethnic conciliation protocols, indigenous sovereignty safeguards, anti-discrimination bulwarks, and juvenile rights fortifications – pledged panaceas – languish in rhetorical limbo, unlegislated and untabled.
This sterility exacts a toll beyond the exchequer: eroded public faith, a reputational hemorrhage for institutions already battered by suspicion. Justice Felix Frankfurter, the U.S. Supreme Court’s sentinel of constitutional fidelity, encapsulated this peril: “In a democracy, power implies responsibility. The greater the power that defies law, the less tolerant the law must be of its excesses.” Guyana’s Commission, vested with transformative authority, has instead epitomised a dereliction that mocks the very democratic ethos it purports to enhance and fortify.
It is clear, that Guyana’s horizon has shifted dramatically since 1980, rendering the revision of the Burnham-era charter a necessity, if it is to provide for our contemporary tempests. The 2025 general and regional elections, culminating on September 1 amid Commonwealth and Carter Center scrutiny, exposed extremely worrying fissures that scream for constitutional reconfiguration. President Irfaan Ali’s PPP secured another mandate, but not without acrimony: GECOM’s creaky machinery, mired in registration disputes and commissioner partisanship, reignited cries of rigging from APNU- WPA quarters. Observers’ preliminary salvos – urging “crucial recommendations” for electoral hygiene – underscore a system teetering on adversarial brinkmanship, where winner-takes-all arithmetic perpetuates ethnic silos rather than bridging them.
Again, the oil bonanza, propelling GDP surges north of 60% annually, has birthed a paradox of prosperity: unprecedented revenues juxtaposed with yawning inequities. Indigenous communities in the Rupununi, guardians of ancestral hinterlands, clash with extractive behemoths over unceded territories, their constitutional invisibility a glaring void amid billions in black gold. Youth bulges, armed with digital dissent, demand not paternalistic handouts but enshrined participatory rights, echoing global Gen-Z insurgencies against gerontocratic gatekeeping. Climate cataclysms, from recurrent floods to seawall encroachments on Amerindian farmlands, amplify calls for eco-justice provisions absent in 1980’s socialist blueprint.
Moreover, the post-election landscape—marked by cash transfers and tuition waivers as electoral sweeteners—masks a legitimacy deficit. As Caribbean Court of Justice President Adrian Saunders, a beacon of regional jurisprudence, admonished in his 2017 address on the rule of law: “The issue of constitutional validity must be placed before the courts without fear or favour, for only through such scrutiny can we ensure that our fundamental laws serve justice, not expediency.” In Guyana’s charged ether, where opposition boycotts and street protests simmer, these realities- economic bifurcation, ecological peril, and electoral entropy- signal not evolution but rupture. Without reform, the Constitution risks becoming a tombstone for democracy, interring aspirations in the rubble of polarisation.
