…reportedly passed on information to Shadick without permission

GUYANA Elections Commission (GECOM) Commissioner, Desmond Trotman, is calling for an investigation to be launched into what he referred to as an “act of deceit” on the part of the commission’s legal officer.

Coming out of Tuesday’s statutory meeting which saw the commissioners reducing the backlog of minutes up to May 7, 2019, Trotman stated that legal opinion had been offered by the legal officer to Opposition-nominated Commissioner, Bibi Shadick, without permission.

The legal officer at the commission is Attorney-at-Law, Excellence Dazzell.
According to Trotman, Dazzell provided her opinion on the state of the list or registrants without sanctioning from the commission.

“There was a request of Commissioner Shadick some time ago about her [Dazzell] offering her opinion on a matter. We had never agreed on the commission that this should go forward. But suddenly, last night I saw, for the first time, there was some correspondence from her [Dazzell] which included a memo on this matter. Because, as far as I know, there was no agreement on that, I raised it today as a matter of concern,” the commissioner explained.

It was at the same forum that Trotman expressed that based on the looks of the situation, some form of “deceit by the legal officer” was at hand.

“One has to be concerned that this opinion that she has offered has to do with the fact that there’s a challenge in the court on the house-to-house registration exercise,” Trotman said.
He added: “The legal adviser is offering an opinion that Shadick requested on what to do now that the list has expired on April 30, 2019. Normally, any commissioner can request anything but, for it to be acted on by one of the staff members, it has to be agreed on by the commission.”

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Trotman said that he is concerned that Dazzell is responding to the requests of a commissioner rather than the collective commission.

He stated that while Commissioner Shadick claims that she had put together the information back in April 2019, at previous discussions of the matter at the commission, she failed to speak on the pending opinion.

Trotman said: “She has never said that she has an opinion in draft. So, for me, the appearance of this opinion today is pregnant with suspicion and I do believe we require an investigation into that.”

He requested GECOM Chair, Justice (ret’d) James Patterson to launch an inquiry into the matter which he expects will receive a response at next Tuesday’s statutory meeting.