More than a year after President Bharrat Jagdeo assented to the bill establishing the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC), the preparatory steps for selecting the members from the various civil society organisations to be represented on it are still to be initiated.
Stabroek News
August 26, 2001
As a result, the three-man Ethnic Relations Commission Tribunal, which is to hear appeals from the decisions of the Ethnic Relations Commission, has also not been set up.
Lance Carberry, chief whip of the PNC/R, the main opposition party, told Stabroek News that he had seen no reason for the delay, since all that needed to be done was to appoint the members of the commission. He explained that that the civil society organizations to be represented had all been identified.
Carberry also recalled that the amendment to the Constitution to establish the commission was fast-tracked to allow for the commission to be put in place before the March 19, elections. Clerk of the National Assembly, Frank Narain, told Stabroek News that the process should be initiated shortly as the matter had been raised in a recent discussion with Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Reepu Daman Persaud.
Among the groups identified to be represented on the commission are the Christian, Hindu and Islamic religions, the labour movement, youth and women.
The motion in which the various civil society organisations were approved also directed Narain to write to the organisations asking them to meet and select, by a consensual mechanism, their nominee to represent them on the commission.
The motion stipulated that the person nominated should enjoy the confidence of the group which s/he would represent on the commission.