Friday November 01, 2013
Kaieteur News
Page 9
FINDING THE BEST PERSON FOR THE JOB Agreement is required between the Leader of the Opposition and the President for the appointment of the Commissioner of Police, the Chief Justice and the Chancellor of the Judiciary. The Constitution requires that there be agreement. That agreement has not been forthcoming for many years now. Ever since the time when Robert Corbin was the Leader of the Opposition, agreement was not reached on the confirmation of both the Chief Justice and Chancellor of the Judiciary. Robert Corbin is no longer the Leader of the Opposition. There is a new Leader of the Opposition. Yet
there remains no agreement on the appointment of the two top positions in the judiciary. In fact it was reported that during the consultations on the appointment of the Chief Justice and the Chancellor, it was proposed by the Leader of the Opposition that there be a process that would involve persons being interviewed for the job. This does not necessarily mean that the Leader of the Opposition was opposed to the confirmation of the acting Chief Justice and acting Chancellor. Instead, it was indicated that what was being suggested was a process that would allow for the best persons for those
two top positions to be found. The Constitution, however, does not speak to any panel. It speaks to agreement between the President and the Leader of the Opposition. It is part of a process of constitutional change, intended to give the opposition a more meaningful role in certain appointments. It is power-sharing through consensus. Like other consensual mechanisms, this one has failed. It has led to gridlock. The suggestion of a panel does not help break the gridlock that arose over the appointment of these two positions. Let us perchance
suppose that the proposed panel throws up some names. What happens then if there is no agreement amongst the country’s foremost political leaders? It effectively makes a mockery of the process. On the other hand, if there is gridlock on the appointment, then a way has to be found to break the gridlock. But why should there be gridlock? Gridlock only arises if there can be no agreement, and this can only result if the candidates proposed by the President are not agreed to by the Leader of the Opposition and vice versa. This can be the only basis for gridlock. In other words, why would there be a
‘Brother Mack’ is 102 not out! By Javone Vickerie Having scored an impressive 102 in the game of life, former miner and farmer Gladstone Mack, popularly known as ‘Brother Mack’, says that he has a lot to thank the Creator for as he spent his birthday yesterday, reflecting on a troubled, yet successful life. Considering himself the number one fan of American TV show ‘Judge Judy’, Mack told the tale of his uneasy childhood, living with his stepmother and father in Aurora, Essequibo. “After my mother died, my father took another wife and she did not treat me nice at all… at one time she had me sleeping on the ground,” Mack recounted. He said that he never knew his mother. Mack told Kaieteur News that despite the odds he faced living with his stepmother, he had to still manage to dwell and respect the woman who made him feel unwanted. After a few years living under his parents’ roof, Mack said that his father passed away and he found himself under the control of his stepmother. “After the death of my father I had a harder time,” Mack reflected. After graduating from school at the primary level, he worked at a factory in Essequibo but was later moved to Georgetown with an aunt. “While at work, a man came and asked for me and he tell me he was from Georgetown and they were doing some work on a stelling, so I came to the city to work,” Mack recalled. He later took up residence with his aunt whom he said “treated me special” before he departed to work the interior. After spending a number of years working as a miner, ‘Brother Mack’ said that he
102-year-old Gladstone Mack gave up the mining trade, bought a house and returned to Essequibo, where he lived with his loving wife and nine children. Mack said that his farming business flourished and profited him. “Dem days provision was very, very cheap…We use to pay fifty cents for a bunch of big plantains; nowadays you got to pay over one hundred dollars for a pound. Times really change,” the centenarian said with a smile. Mack said that the transformation from working in the interior to becoming a farmer was not difficult, and he became capable of taking care of his family. “I was able to send all my children to school and take care of my home being a farmer, so it was a profitable change.” Mack became emotional
when asked about his wife who passed away three years ago. “Every time I remember my wife I cry, because she was good woman to me and a great mother to my children,” Mack said. He remembered that he first fell in love with his wife, Viola, when he was 24 and she was 18. “We were neighbours and I used to see her everyday and talk to her till eventually her mother began to favour me,” the man said. It was three years later that the young couple decided to tie the knot and they spent sixty fruitful years together. “We been in our house and the neighbours dem could tell you that they never heard us arguing. She was a woman of understanding and she knew me better than anyone,” Mack said. Brother Mack’s children have planned a family reunion at their lot 11 Block ‘E’ South Sophia home tomorrow.
need to find the best person other than if the existing appointees are not considered as the best persons? The opposition says that its proposal for a panel to interview candidates for the posts is to ensure that the best persons for the two positions are found. This is why it is saying it proposes a panel as a means to break the gridlock. But is it not at the same time implicitly saying that the best persons cannot be found between the two leaders at the moment? Since the government is proposing the two incumbents and the opposition is proposing a panel to interview candidates, it can only mean that the opposition does not view the President’s nominees as the best candidates, or it wants a wider process to satisfy itself that the best candidates are found. So it has to be one of two things. Either the opposition is not in agreement with the two candidates, or it wants a wider process to ensure that the best person is selected. But as mentioned before, what happens if that process turns up names on which there is no agreement? Gridlock ensues again. What makes the situation all the more interesting is that while the opposition broached this proposal for a panel to interview candidates
for the position of Chancellor and Chief Justice, it was presented with the opportunity to do the same in relation to the appointment of the Commissioner of Police. How strange it is that the opposition did not call for a panel to be empanelled to consider suitable applications for the position of Commissioner of Police. Indeed the opposition claimed that the acting Commissioner was the best man for the job. It found the best man without having to go to a panel. Therefore why can it not find the best jurists for the positions of Chief Justice and Chancellor without also having to go to a panel? The opposition has a lot of questions to answer about the swiftness with which they moved to agree on the appointment of the Commissioner of Police, even while they held on to the position that for the positions of Chief Justice and Chancellor of the Judiciary, a panel should be established to find the best persons for the job.