Constitution commission to start work on report --education programme to be mounted
The Constitution Reform Commission is at the report-writing phase of its work, which its secretary, Haslyn Parris, says it must embark on immediately if it is to meet the July 17, deadline for submitting the report to parliament. He also disclosed plans for a public education programme being mounted by the commission which is intended to keep the public engaged in the discussions on the issues of the constitution reform process. "It is critical," Parris told a press conference at the commission's secretariat yesterday, "that we embark immediately on the report-writing phase of the project; and to facilitate this task, it is timely to have the inputs of the experts for the purpose of assisting the commissioners to arrive at informed consensual decisions." He said that to assist in the compilation of the report, the commission would need to hire six to eight persons whose specific skill was report writing. Parris said that three of the experts assisting the commission had arrived here over the weekend. They are Carl Dundas and Rodney Brooke, experts in voting systems and local government respectively, whose services have been made available by the Commonwealth Secretariat; and Professor Theodore Hanf, an expert on systems of government, whose services have been made available by the National Democratic Institute (NDI). Other experts whose services are being made available through the NDI during this month are Professors Kathleen Mahoney and Aanund Hylland in the areas of gender issues and electoral systems. In July, it will be facilitating the visit of Professor Louis Sachs, who is an expert on Bill of Rights/Drafting. This month too, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) will be making available to the Commission the expertise of Dr Augusto Willemsen-Diaz whose competence is in the field of Indigenous Issues, Parris disclosed. He said that the inputs of the experts will complement those of three local experts in Constitutional Law. These experts are Professor Harold Lutchman, Rudy James and Keith Massiah, all of whom are associated with the University of Guyana. Commission chairman, Ralph Ramkarran SC, who chaired the press conference, in responding to questions about the publicity to be given to the commission's report, said that once presented to the select committee which established the commission, it would be up to that committee to determine what sort of publicity would be given to it. However, he said that he would hazard a guess that the Select Committee would want to give the report the widest possible publicity to stimulate public discussion. Dr Rupert Roopnaraine, a member of the commission as well as the select committee, rejected suggestions that the commission's work was only of "academic interest" and that its recommendations could be ignored once presented to the parliament. He said that the report would include recommendations arrived at through consensus; those as a result of majority decisions; and those recommended by a minority on the commission. He explained that the recommendations which would be subject to change would be the majority and minority recommendations as a result of the public discussions to which they would subjected. Parris, in explaining the commission's public education and information programme, said that its objective was to give the public a sense of how the commission was thinking. Also he said that the exposure of the experts to the public was to provide some insight into the process by which the commission arrived at its recommendation as much as it was to give the experts an appreciation of how Guyanese defined their problems. This would allow their advice to the Commission to be informed by the views of the public and the commissioners to which they had been exposed. Parris said that the programme comprised a series of panel discussions involving the commissioners and other groupings; public presentations, beginning this evening at the Park Hotel, by various visiting experts sponsored jointly by the commission, the National Democratic Institute and the Commonwealth Secretariat; a radio magazine and a national essay competition for children ages 12-14 years and 15-18 years. The prizes for the essay competition were being donated by private sector enterprises and included a first prize of a one-year internet service, a $50,000 education trust fund as the second prize; and a complete set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica as the third prize for 12-14 age group. The prizes for those 15-18 included a first prize of a computer; a one-year scholarship to the University of Guyana as the second prize; and a third prize of a one-year internet service. The discussions are to be broadcast on radio and television including the private channels. Karen Davis, who heads the Public Education and Information Division of the secretariat, said that some of the broadcasts had been sponsored by the commission and others by the television channels on which they were aired. Parris, in a prepared statement on the status of the commission's work, said that it was "essentially on schedule" and should be completed at a "planned cost of $68 million." Of this amount, the government had contributed approximately $13 million. Two of the other commissioners at the press conference, Ramdial Bhookmohan and Harricand Mahadeo, chairmen of two of the five sub-committees set up by the commission, described the working of the commission as very harmonious and worthy of emulation by other institutions. It is also a view shared by Dr Roopnaraine. Mahadeo expressed the opinion that the work of the commission had supplanted that of the dialogue process, as on the commission the representatives of the PPP/Civic and the PNC were able to work through their differences amicably and harmoniously. 
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