-Solicitor-General
SOLICITOR General Nigel Hawke, on Friday, again called on the High Court to dismiss the Fixed Date Application (FDA) filed by Chartered Accountant Christopher Ram challenging House-to-House Registration, on the grounds that the issues raised in the application were fully ventilated at the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).
Hawke, who is presenting Attorney General Basil Williams – the fourth named respondent in the case – was among attorneys who made oral arguments before Chief Justice (ag) Roxane George-Wiltshire in the High Court on Friday.

The Solicitor General told the Court that once the CCJ ruled that the December 18 No-Confidence Motion was validly passed in the National Assembly; it invited all parties in the consolidated cases to make submissions on the consequential orders that should follow. Ram, he pointed out, was among those represented.
He noted that among the reliefs sought by Ram was one which invited the CCJ to order the President to issue a proclamation setting a date for election no later than September 18, 2019 but the CCJ, Hawke said, refrained from making such an order. Emphasizing that the matter was already ventilated at Guyana’s final appellate court, the Solicitor General told the Chief Justice that Ram has now turned to the lower court to secure an order, which was not granted by the CCJ.

“It was ventilated at the CCJ, and the Court said it cannot,” the Solicitor General reiterated.
In ruling on the matter, the CCJ said: “Article 106 of the Constitution invests in the President and the National Assembly (and implicitly in GECOM), responsibilities that impact on the precise timing of the elections which must be held. It would not therefore be right for the Court, by the issuance of coercive orders or detailed directives, to presume to instruct these bodies on how they must act and thereby pre-empt the performance by them of their constitutional responsibilities. It is not, for example, the role of the Court to establish a date on or by which the elections must be held, or to lay down timelines and deadlines that, in principle, are the preserve of political actors guided by constitutional imperatives. The Court must assume that these bodies and personages will exercise their responsibilities with integrity and in keeping with the unambiguous provisions of the Constitution bearing in mind that the no confidence motion was validly passed as long ago as 21 December 2018.”

Ram, through his Attorney Anil Nandlall, challenged the constitutionality of House-to-House Registration. In the High Court on Friday, Nandlall told the Chief Justice that if House-to-House Registration exercise is allowed to continue to its conclusion, it would jeopardise significantly the holding of elections. It is his belief that elections should be held three months from June 18 – the date the CCJ ruled on the No-Confidence Motion. Added to that, he argued that the House-to-House Registration exercise undertaken by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) is illegal because it is intended to scrap the now expired List of Electors, and replace it with a new one generated from the nationwide exercise. According to him, in doing that, persons would be de-registered.

But Attorney-at-Law Roysdale Forde, who is representing the Chief Elections Officer Keith Lowenfield in association with Senior Counsel Neil Boston, told the Court that the Elections Laws provide for a new list to be generated.
He noted that once a new list is generated, the Laws provide for a period of Claims and Objections, during which persons who were not able to registered during the national excise, could present themselves for registration.
“The law allows for a claims and objection period where a person could go and have their names registered and they could be added to the list,” Forde told reporters shortly after making his case to the Court. GECOM is expected to complete the national registration exercise on October 20.

Meanwhile, Senior Counsel Stanley Marcus, in responding to claims made by Nandlall that he has no authority to represent GECOM, questioned Ram’s decision to file legal proceedings against GECOM, when he was fully aware that it had no Chairman at the time.
He said Chairman or no Chairman, once legal proceedings are filed the GECOM has every right to represent it-self. In the absence of a Chair, the CEO assigned Marcus to the case. “He was the most senior official at the time, therefore he had to take action,” Marcus told reporters outside of the court.

“Even if it is, even if it is, he was entitled to act, he is the most senior person, he is performing the House to House Registration, and there it is, this action was brought to stop it. The law says if there are certain circumstances that require you to act out of necessity then any law that affects it would have to excuse you,” the Senior Counsel said. He had put forward similar arguments in the Court. The Guyana Bar Association also presented oral arguments in the Case.
On Monday at 9:00hrs, the High Court will continue to hear arguments in the case challenging the ongoing House-to-House Registration.