Saying that he believes that the Court of Appeal was wrong in its pronouncement on what constituted a majority in last December’s vote on a no-confidence motion against the government, attorney and accountant Christopher Ram yesterday said he has instructed that his attorney appeal the decision at the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).
“…[T]he courts in my view have made a grave error of unquestioning acceptance of decisions and principles from afar with no regard that, at best, can be of no more than persuasive value. In the process, yesterday’s decision marked a turning point in Guyana’s jurisprudence, introducing a harmful level of uncertainty into constitutional and statutory interpretation in our courts,” Ram said in a statement, which came a day after the Appellate Court, in a split decision, overturned an earlier ruling that the motion was validly passed on a vote of 33 to 32 elected members of the National Assembly.
Chancellor of the Judiciary (ag) Yonette Cummings-Edwards and appellate judge Dawn Gregory both agreed that 34 votes were required to guarantee the motion’s successful passage, while appellate judge Rishi Persaud dissented and endorsed Chief Justice Roxane George-Wiltshire’s ruling in the lower court.
