Aug 26, 2026 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

(Kaieteur News) – The belated explanation offered by Ralph Ramkarran, former Chairman of the Constitution Reform Commission (CRC) that the present constitutional gridlock over the appointment of Guyana’s Chancellor and Chief Justice resulted from a misinterpretation by the Oversight Committee of the CRC’s recommendation for a “consensual mechanism” deserves careful constitutional scrutiny.

It is certainly important to revisit the history of the 1999 reform process. But history cannot, by itself, determine the meaning of a constitutional provision that Parliament ultimately enacted and which has operated for more than two decades. The starting point must be the distinction between what the CRC recommended and what the Constitution now says. It is contended that the CRC recommended that the Chancellor and Chief Justice “should be appointed through a consensual mechanism.”