Acknowledging that the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) “knocked us down on every point conceivable” on the validity of the no-confidence vote against the government, Attorney General Basil Williams SC on Tuesday said the administration would accept the ruling.
Guyana’s final court also declared that President David Granger’s unilateral appointment of retired judge James Patterson as the Guyana Election Commission (GECOM) Chairman was flawed and Williams acknowledged that it means that he was not validly appointed.
“There is no other course of appealing, so we had said that we will abide by the judgment,” he told reporters outside the Court of Appeal, where he and the other lawyers involved in the matters had gathered for the rulings, which were delivered via video conference by the CCJ in Trinidad.
“We expect that the appellants will make proposals to us in terms of what they think should happen but we are not in a position to go further than that,” he further said about the consequential orders to be made.
The CCJ will hear submissions on June 24th from both the applicants and respondents in the respective cases on the consequential orders to be made.
Senior Counsel Neil Boston, the attorney for Compton Reid, who was challenging the validity of the vote of former government member Charrandass Persaud in favour of the motion—thereby allowing for its passage—also expressed disappointment. Like Williams, he pointed out that court knocked them down.
Among the grounds for his client’s challenge was Persaud being a dual citizen, which disqualified him from being a Member of Parliament.
According to Boston, the court felt that it could not have been the intention of the framers of the Constitution that the vote of a person who crosses the floor should be invalid. “The constitution must provide expressly for that and that is why they did not consider Charrandass’ vote as invalid because it was two limbs – invalidity because he voted against the list and alternatively he was not qualified to be a member. So on both limbs they knock us down much to our disappointment but that is the final court,” he noted.
Also disappointed was attorney for PNCR’s Joseph Harmon, Roysdale Forde.
“I am completely disappointed with the decision of the court,” he said, before stressing that it was felt that the arguments advanced in support of government were sound and ought to have been upheld.
He said on Monday he would be in a better position to say what is practical at this stage.
‘Reasonable’
Kamal Ramkarran, the attorney for appellant Christopher Ram, who had contended that the motion was validly passed and that government ought to have resigned, said the ruling on the no-confidence case was “what we expected. It’s what we argued, so I believe that the decisions were correct.”
He later expressed hope that the President and the Leader of the Opposition would agree that we have “maybe a new Chairman from one of the lists within a very short time and …elections may be within 28 days. That will be reasonable. So, hopefully, they can agree.”
Responding to the suggestion of elections being held in 28 days, Forde told reporters that he cannot see how this could be practical or reasonable, “having regard to the system and what needs to be done and the need for the list to be properly sanitised and prepared.”
Anil Nandlall, the attorney for Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo, who also sought to have the motion upheld, told reporters that “the people of Guyana and democracy and the constitution have triumphed today. As I said from the beginning, this case should never have been filed. It was a waste of resources, a waste of time [and], fortunately, we have come to the end and, fortunately, the court in its wisdom has seen it fit to fix a date and time for us to at least try and come back and work out some kind of arrangement in terms of the consequential orders.”
Nandlall, who is on record in both matters, expressed the view that the court has given a clear hint of where it is going in the absence of an agreement by the two leaders. “…The court said that the constitution itself has set out certain guidelines and the President of the Court, in his summary, indicated that that is more expressly and elaborately stated in the judgment. What the court is really hinting at there is [that] in the absence of an agreement, the court will have to take the initiative and the court doesn’t really want to do that, to make coercive orders for early elections,” he added.
He further charged that trickery that is taking place at GECOM concerning the push for house-to-house registration will have to be stopped in light of the ruling and the constitution will have to be given effect to by way of early elections.
Asked if a new Chairman at this point will be the right thing, he said that the Chairman’s appointment has already been declared to be unlawful. “So that is a given. That’s where we have to start from, whether it’s a right thing, a wrong thing we can’t question that. An unlawful act cannot be countenanced, so the chairman will have to go and that is why the judge at the end of his ruling in that matter specifically said that the court must be addressed on consequential orders—meaning that I believe the court recognised strategies of dilations and delay which have preoccupied this process and the court is indicating that it may be influenced to order time frames within which a next chairman is to be appointed.”
Reminded that during the proceedings in the no-confidence case, one of the party’s lawyers had signalled the PPP’s willingness to set aside the removal of the Chairman temporarily, Nandlall said that this may not be possible given yesterday’s ruling.
The court, he said, has ruled “here, in this firm way. I don’t think that the court will entertain [it]”. He told reporters that the court has declared an act unlawful and, therefore, cannot now be asked to “continue that unlawfulness in office. It’s against the law. I can’t imagine that the court would want to do that kind of thing.”
Nandlall told reporters that he anticipated an elections date, taking into consideration the letter and spirit of the constitution. “The three months that the constitution prescribed has already expired. The least that the court can do in the circumstances is to come up with the shortest period of time, not to frustrate the constitution further.”
He couldn’t identify demands that the Opposition Leader is likely to make when he meets with the president.
Attorney Sanjeev Dadatin, who represents Persaud, said that he is pleased with the court’s ruling that the majority of 65 is 33 and not 34 as was being argued by government. He said that with this decision, “reason has been restored to its throne…” before adding that it was a travesty that the Appellate Court in Guyana agreed with the 34-majority argument.
He reminded that on his client’s behalf it was also argued that challenging Persaud’s eligibility in Parliament had to have been done within a 28-day period. “We are very pleased that the court expressly agreed with that,” he said.
Datadin added that while his client was not a party to the GECOM case, he believes that the “unilateral appointment was bad [and] it was retrograde. It was a reversal of things. It was representative of what we were trying to avoid….”He expressed hope that going forward there is a quick process for the appointment of a new GECOM chairman. “Parliament should be dissolved now. The president should dissolve Parliament and we should go to an election. This is what it is. We play by rules. If we are not happy with the rules and we decide to stay away, then where does that leave us because the next time, it might be the people who are currently in opposition not liking it and they would want to bend it. Then what happens? …Our citizens must obey the law. It’s very clear,” he said.
Datadin added that during the hearing he was in touch with his client, who is still abroad. He said Persaud is pleased with the ruling, was confident about the legality of what he had done and was relieved that the court agreed with his position. The attorney indicated that at some point, his client will be returning to Guyana. “I have no doubt that at some point in time, he will return to Guyana. I can’t tell you when that will be,” he noted.
