ATTORNEY General (AG), Basil Williams, has filed an appeal against the ruling of former Chief Justice, Ian Chang that ministers, Winston Felix and Keith Scott cannot hold seats in the National Assembly as technocratic ministers. Chang delivered the ruling last week, which was roundly condemned. The matter arose following a motion filed by PPP Member, Desmond Morian challenging Scott and Felix’s locus standi as MPs. The appeal of Chang’s ruling was made on four grounds. Firstly, Williams argued that the learned Chief Justice cannot be supported in law and he erred when he found that Winston Felix and Keith Scott are not lawful members of and cannot sit in the National of Assembly of the 11th Parliament of Guyana. Additionally, he said Chang fell in to grave error of law and misdirected himself in law when he found that persons who are on the successful list of candidates are elected and therefore cannot qualify under Article 105 to be ‘non-elected’ members of parliament and who have not been chosen or selected from the list of candidates to be Members of Parliament are excluded from being selected by the President as persons who are qualified to be elected as members of the National Assembly.
According to the Attorney General, the decision of the learned Chief Justice is fundamentally bad in law in that the learned Chief Justice failed to take in to consideration the provisions of the Representation of the People Act, Chapter 1:03 and the National Assembly (Validity of Elections Act), Chapter 1:04. “The decision of the learned Chief Justice is fundamentally bad in law in that the learned Chief Justice (ag) misdirected himself in law when he failed to take into account that Article 163 (4)(a) of the Constitution of Guyana empowered Parliament to make provisions with respect to the circumstances and manner in which and the conditions upon which proceedings for the determination of any question under this article may be instituted in the High Court which Parliament did by enacting the National Assembly (Validity of Elections) Act, Cap. 1:04.” Williams said the learned Chief Justice (ag) at the time of delivery of the decision was functus officio. “The Decision is in breach of the rules of natural justice that is, the Chief Justice (ag) failed to give a hearing to the Attorney General before delivering his decision.”
In his ruling, Chang declared that Felix and Scott are elected members of the National Assembly, and that despite their status of elected members of the National Assembly, they do not hold seats and cannot sit in the National Assembly, since their names were not among those extracted from the APNU + AFC list of candidates to hold seats on behalf of the persons named in that successful list. Additionally, Chang said that Article 105 of the Constitution has no application to elected members of the National Assembly; viz: persons whose names were on a successful list of candidates. He said that despite their appointment by the President to be executive Ministers of the Government, such an executive appointment does not entitle Scott and Felix to hold seats or sit as members of the National Assembly
An application for a stay of execution against the order of Chang comes up for hearing today at 09:00h before Chancellor of the Judiciary Justice Carl Singh in the Court of Appeal.