Acting Chief Justice Roxane George SC yesterday validated President David Granger’s unilateral appointment of retired judge James Patterson as Guyana Elections Com-mission (GECOM) Chair-man, ruling that he had the discretion to so do.
In a ruling that was delivered in over an hour yesterday morning on the application filed by PPP executive Zulfikar Mustapha, who was seeking the annulment of Patterson’s appointment, the judge dismissed the challenge as wholly misconceived and declared “I hold that there is nothing before this Court to permit a finding that the President acted unlawfully or irrationally in resorting to the proviso to Article 161(2), or to rebut the presumption that Justice Patterson is qualified to be appointed to the post of Chairman of GECOM.”
Expressing disappointment with the ruling, Mustapha’s Anil Nandlall has signaled his intention to appeal “all the way to the Caribbean Court of Justice if we have to.”
