Chairman registers loss of confidence in GECOM’s legal officer

James Patterson
James Patterson

The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Chairman, retired Justice James Patterson, has informed the commission’s Legal officer, Excellence Dazzell, that he has no confidence in her.

In a detailed June 4th memorandum, which was signed by Patterson and seen by Stabroek News, Dazzell is accused of having failed to accurately convey GECOM’s position to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) during a pretrial review (PTR) for the no-confidence motion cases that could see early polls being held.

“Yours was to request of the court additional time for submissions to be made. You, however, attended the PTR and declared that the Commission would be making no submissions. You also failed to mention to the court that the Commission had retained Senior Counsel Mr. Stanley Marcus, aforesaid. You also had a special mandate to further explain the reason for his absence. This you did not do,” the two-page memo reads.

He further states that at a meeting immediately after the PTR, Dazzell, in the presence of attorney Roysdale Forde, confirmed that the basis of his “bewilderment was not mistaken.”

There is no indication as to why Forde, who represents APNU General Secretary Joseph Harmon in the cases before the CCJ, was present at a meeting between the Chairman and Legal Officer of GECOM.

Stabroek News attempted to contact Dazzell and the Chairman, through Public Relations Officer Yolanda Ward, but neither could be reached up to press time. The individual who answered Dazzell’s mobile phone stated that she was unavailable and calls to Ward’s phone went to voicemail.

Meanwhile, Patterson also stated in the memo that Marcus conveyed at an April 25th meeting “his dismay at the manifest incompetence you displayed during consultations.” 

He maintained that at no time did Dazzell refute assertions that the instructions on how to proceed were communicated to her more than once in direct conversations between her and Marcus.  “I am still pondering the case: incompetence, sabotage, mal-practice, all possible conclusions being negative outcomes. Since this situation developed, you have done nothing to dispel these considerations,” the Chairman writes before concluding that as the legal officer’s direct supervisor he “felt obliged to communicate that I have lost confidence in your dealings and intromissions with myself and the work of the Commission.”

He also said that he had communicated his feelings to the Chief Election Officer.

The six commissioners, who along with Patterson are tasked with guiding the functioning of GECOM, are, as with most other issues, divided on the appropriateness of the Chairman’s memo.

“I am not sure that a letter has been sent but if it has been sent it is because he felt that her work was not satisfactory. It has to do with him, as Chairman, who gives direct supervision to her work and feels for whatever reason that her work is not satisfactory. I am assuming as nothing came to commission,” government-nominated Commissioner Desmond Trotman told Stabroek News.

Opposition-nominated Commissioner Bibi Shadick also indicated that the issue was not discussed at the level of the commission, which didn’t meet on Tuesday due to the absence of two government-nominated commissioners.

“None of this has been brought to the commission. We are reading this in the newspapers. Too many decisions are being made, too many things are happening, and the commission knows nothing about it,” she lamented.

According to Shadick, once the issue was brought to her attention, she contact Patterson to ascertain if the letter was a prelude to trying to dismiss the officer and reminded him that Dazzell holds the position of Legal officer to the Commission. 

“This is not your confidential secretary or personal legal officer. Any action taken in relation to the officer must be taken by the commission and this is not the action of the commission,” she stressed.

Trotman previously labelled Dazzell’s recent actions as suspicious after she tabled an opinion which said that a new voter’s list is not required as “based on (elections law), the list must be updated bi-annually by adding persons who are now qualified to be registered, to that list, and those who are no longer qualified to be registered, to be taken off that list….”

The officer, in her opinion, further advised that “procedures be put in place to ensure the revision of the list, otherwise the Commission would be acting in defiance of the law and may prejudice any by-election that may become necessary.”

Dazzell’s opinion, which was based on her interpretation of Section 7. (1) of the Elections Amendment Act (2000) and the Local Authorities (Elections) (Amendment) Act of 2018, could prove important as GECOM has repeatedly stated the availability of a valid list significantly affects the timeline within which it can produce a credible election.

According to Trotman and fellow government commissioner Vincent Alexander, presenting the opinion at the request of Shadick and not the commission was reason enough to suspect Dazzell’s motive since she never  told the commission that “she has an opinion in draft” despite the number of times the matter was raised at meetings.

Patterson has since confirmed that Dazzell submitted the opinion in April before the expiration of the voters list.