By Antonio Dey | HGP Nightly News
Calls for urgent reforms in Guyana’s justice system were blocked on Monday when Speaker of the National Assembly, Manzoor Nadir, ruled against two key opposition motions tied to the tragic death of 11-year-old Adrianna Younge.
Speaker Nadir explained that a petition demanding an independent investigation and the temporary resignation of the Police Commissioner was received electronically at 9:32 a.m. — just hours before the day’s sitting — and could not be processed for inclusion on the Order Paper. According to parliamentary procedure, petitions must first be reviewed by the Clerk of the National Assembly before reaching the Speaker.
However, Opposition MP Amanza Walton-Desir pushed back, arguing that the urgency of Adrianna’s case — which has shaken public confidence — warranted immediate parliamentary action. Walton-Desir accused the Speaker and government members of showing “callousness” and treating a national tragedy as business as usual.
“The Speaker operated as if he was completely unaware that there was a petition. The entire world saw the Speaker twisting himself into a pretzel to explain the inexcusable,” Walton-Desir told Nightly News.
In addition to rejecting the petition, Speaker Nadir also denied a motion by MP Jermaine Figueira that proposed the establishment of a “National Child Emergency Notification System”, modeled after the Amber Alert systems in the United States and Canada. Figueira’s proposed system was to be named in memory of Adrianna Younge, aiming to create a rapid-response network for missing children.
Nadir ruled that the recent procedural changes by the Guyana Police Force (GPF) — which now eliminate the 24-hour waiting period to start missing persons investigations — sufficiently address the issue.
The decision sparked outrage among opposition parliamentarians, several of whom walked out of the parliamentary session in protest.
The failure to advance these motions underscores a deepening rift in Guyana’s National Assembly over how the state is responding to Adrianna Younge’s death — an incident that has galvanized nationwide demands for accountability, child protection reforms, and police transparency.
