By GHK Lall- Mr. Aubrey Norton has a week to decide. Parliament reopens next Monday, Nov 3rd. Aubrey Norton is the man of the moment. He is also the man of the future, probably decades in the making, given how much rests in his hands, stirs his mind, drives his decision. Involved are the substantive senior appointments of chancellor of the judiciary and chief justice, after years of stalemate, the disgrace of acting roles. Will he, or won’t he? I make my call, and I place my clean, hard-earned dollar. Aubrey Norton will. The Irfaan Ali-led PPP Govt gets to celebrate another momentous victory. From a bridge across the Demerara River to bridging political gaps.
For the benefit of the Guyanese intelligentsia and ordinary Guyanese themselves, I share a tiny truism. It is not what goes into a process, or what inspires honoring constitutional standards in letter and spirit that matters. It is what comes out of process and considerations -political considerations. The history books of Guyana will only record the outcome. Consensus was reached, collaboration followed. Collaboration has come to represent a wide spectrum of elements.
It is why I like it more than cooperation, when circumstances uphold. I think that the matter of these two substantive appointments to the judiciary were already a foregone conclusion. Foregone even before the first letter in the first word of Pres. Ali’s first communication in this his second term to Mr. Norton, as opposition leader, was typed. Many will have much to say about that designation, the bases for still holding onto it. Here’s what I say.
Mr. Norton is now on record as saying that the decision on the appointments will adhere to the democratic process. Democracy and democratic must qualify to be the most misused words in Western civilization. What I think I hear Aubrey Norton standing up and saying is that he still has capacity. Relative to mental capacity, I would say yes. Relative to political capacity, he clearly is not in that state of mind that guides to relinquish what was lost, what would be regarded as the decent and consummate step to take. Recall what I presented a few sentences ago: the PPP Govt can start celebrating from now, even before pen is put to paper to confirm YES to the two names supplied.
The PNC lost, but still won. WIN’s Mohamed won, but somehow, he lost out. The biggest winner in this season of winning is the PPP Govt. I can hear Excellency Ali ringing from the rooftops. ‘See! This government gets things done. When this leadership says that it will work at something, it never stops until it is realized.’ How does a peon like me respond to something of that impeccability? Other than what was well-worked out, however that game is played, I’m stuck, with the likelihood of a duck threatening.
How many more of these most curious (and unsettling) types of development, does the PPP of Dr. Irfaan Ali have on the drawing board for Guyanese? I doubt whether much can be left to unveil these kinds of political sorceries, of which judicial appointments are the latest. The PPP Govt already owns and controls the public service, the national security service, the information service, private sector service, 8 out of 10 regional services, and the lawmaking service. And now to those can be added command and control of the judiciary. This pushes me to offer something that my fellow Guyanese should consider, and it has to do with the same judiciary.
Whether in the U.S. or Guyana, a common slip occurs. The focus is on the presidency, as in who will win it, and how that person will run with its powers. The wider, higher focus should be on the judiciary, i.e., Guyana’s highest court. Presidents are usually for 8 or 10 years; they are there, then they go. Supreme Court judges can last decades. In the U.S. the great Chief Justice John Marshall lasted for the eternity of 34 years, and was he outstanding! In contrast, I urge colored Guyanese to consider Chief Justice Roger Taney, and what a judicial twister (in the poorest sense) he was.
From that short journey to the U.S. I return to Guyana. Pres. Ali has written to Mr. Norton. Mr. Norton now has the weight of decades ahead on his head. I assert that he should not be the man agreeing or objecting to the substantive appointment of chancellor and chief justice. For that itself would a travesty of justice, the rankest of injustices, whether he says yea or nay. He will say yea. Mark my words. When developments are too neat, I can confidently make that kind of guarantee. For the greater good. To unlock the judicial political lockbox. A pandora’s box it is.
