Dear Editor,
Unlike most CARICOM Member States, Guyana, by its seminal participation in the establishment of the Caribbean Court of Justice (hereinafter referred to as the CCJ) in 2001, had “buried its navel string” in its decision-making process. Our confidence in the finality of its rulings may have now been undermined by its reluctance and discrete restraint made pellucid in its recent indecision in the no-confidence litigation, consequent upon the obvious, manifested manipulation of its imprecise but discreet rulings by the caretaker regime of the Granger administration. Admirable curial restraint is now mistaken for a self-indulgence in political filibustering, so common place in the architecture of undemocratic juntas, disrespectful of electoral proprieties.
This unwitting neglect for the likelihood of the duplicity of the political polity that characterises some CARICOM incumbents has unexpectedly diminished the real but less than robustly expressed intentions of the Bench of Judges. All and sundry must condemn the cunctatious dissembling of the Granger Government whose legitimacy expired on the 20th day of March, 2019, following the No Confidence Vote on the 21st day of December, 2018.
For the avoidance of doubt, the unchallenged jurisdiction of the CCJ contained in Article 153(1) of the Constitution and the CCJ Act 2005 relating to the vexed issues before it entitled this Court to exercise the eclectic powers conferred by Article 153 (2). This paragraph of the Article is worthy of verbatim expression, to wit, the Court “…may make such orders, issue such writs and give such directions as it may consider appropriate for the purpose of enforcing or securing the enforcement of any the provisions of Article 138 to 151 (inclusive)”. The record reflects that the CCJ relied upon, indubitably, the time hallowed Conventions of law and practice, the requisite, common, expected integrity of the esteemed State actors, to give effect to the patently pellucid intentions of the Court’s decision. Hence, its adherence to curial reserve and concinnity of language. However, on a purposive interpretation of the breadth and expanse of the panoply of powers which inhere to the Court, given the simple words used, no meaningful view could exclude a coercive component therein. This Court utilised this power in the case of the registration of an elector in the Barbadian election process in 2018.
In hindsight, their regnant wisdom and comity for the separate organ of the Executive have been dashed unto the barnacled rocks of political expediency, generated solely by the insatiable hunger for power, regardless. One can only hope that the lesson given is a lesson learnt. The Constitutional powers with regard to the Court’s authority to give effect to its Order remain intact for the purpose of enforcing or securing the enforcement of any of its aforementioned original Orders. Timeline explicit in the Constitution and implicit in the Orders of the CCJ must be met by all “bodies and personages”. Nevertheless, experience has shown that in electoral matters, the limitless tenacity of the PNC component of the APNU-AFC Coalition resists all lawful demands to respect the 1980 Constitution.
It may therefore be plausible to question whether the Court’s self-imposed abnegation of its optional remit in paragraph 2 of Article 153 took into account the dysfunctional literacy and numeracy competence and challenges of the Granger-led regime and its selected satellite “bodies and personages”. Furthermore, and contrary to the uninformed mutterings about sovereignty in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, zollverein States such as Guyana have ceded any claims to any quondam autartic dimensions, geopolitically.
Should the ruling of the CCJ not be complied with,quo vadis?
Yours faithfully,
Justice C R Ramson SC OR
Former Attorney General and
Minister of Legal Affairs
