The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) is calling for Parliament to meet to set up the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Constitutional Reform (PSCCR) as a means of paving the way for a return to the rule of law.
The PNCR has been boycotting Parliament for a number of months now in its impasse with the government on a range of issues.
In a release, the GHRA says that the PSCCR initiative has the advantage of reinforcing public confidence by a return to the rule of law, paving the way for a full return to parliamentary government, returning responsibility for governance to elected representatives, allowing the involvement of all required expertise and providing a forum for consultation on the shape a new political structure should take.
But Sheila Holder, one of the two GAP/WPA parliamentarians, says that the proposal won't work as there is no getting around the need for the PPP and the PNCR to sit down and talk to each other.
The United Force's Aubrey Collins feels that the PSCCR is unique in that it provides for outsiders to be brought in, but says it has no powers as its recommendations would have to give way to the majority opinion in parliament.
A GHRA release last week announcing the proposal says, "Experience has demonstrated that informal extra-parliamentary dialogues have a low probability of success, for the simple reason that informal mechanisms require much higher levels of mutual trust between the parties than formal mechanisms."
"Informal processes are more vulnerable to continuous challenge, delay and capriciousness. Despite the best intentions, the Inter-Party Dialogue and the Social Partners Initiative have both suffered from such problems."
The GHRA describes the PSCCR as possibly unprecedented in the English-speaking Caribbean as it allows for non-parliamentarians to be co-opted as members of the committee, not simply as advisers.
"We have therefore a formal legal procedure of considerable flexibility unanimously approved by both major parties, which brings together political and civil sectors with the powers to address precisely the issues which are at the centre of our current crisis."
It says that the short-term agenda of the PSCCR could include auditing the implementation of decisions emerging from the Inter-Party dialogue; resolving proportionality issues in the composition of statutory commissions, addressing the problems of the chairs of parliamentary sectoral committees and removing obstacles to the implementation of constitutional reform.
It says, too, that possibility of a constructive discussion of the PNCR's recent proposal on Shared Governance, described as a "very welcome development", cannot be "divorced from movement to implement reforms already agreed upon."
Holder says that even if the National Assembly resolves itself into a Constituent Assembly there are so many hurdles that a political discussion between the two major parties is inevitable.
She contends that as happens in other places, it is the government's responsibility to maintain peace and harmony, which if necessary, would involve negotiations with various parties to achieve the desired peace.
Raphael Trotman, a PNCR executive member, says that that he had not had time to study the GHRA proposal but welcomes any and every proposal which offers a way out of the present crisis. As such he says it should be thoroughly examined to see whether it could work either by itself or in tandem with other measures.
A source close to the PNCR describes the PSCCR as a tool for the facilitation of ongoing reform and that if the Social Partners' Joint Consultation comes up with proposals then it could be referred to the PSCCR.