PPP/C in failed bid to block CEO’s report
President of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), Justice Adrian Saunders
President of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), Justice Adrian Saunders

….CCJ says cannot undo what has already been done

By Svetlana Marshall
AN attempt by the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) to have the Chief Elections Officer’s (CEO’s) Elections Report withdrawn failed on Thursday, with the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) – the country’s apex court – making it clear that it cannot undo what had already been done.

However, the court said that the order blocking the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) from declaring the results of the General and Regional Elections remains in force. “We cannot undo what was done by the Chief Elections Officer,” President of the CCJ, Justice Adrian Saunders told a case management conference. It was during Thursday’s conference for the case brought against Eslyn David and the Chief Elections Officer, Keith Lowenfield and others, that Trinidad’s Senior Counsel Douglas Mendes – the attorney representing PPP/C’s General Secretary, Bharrat Jagdeo, and its Presidential Candidate, Irfaan Ali (the appellants) – sought to have the CEO withdraw his Elections Report, which was submitted to the Chairman of GECOM, Justice (Ret’d) Claudette Singh on Tuesday June 23, 2020.

During the conference presided over by Justice Saunders, Justice Jacob Wit, Justice Winston Anderson and Justice Denys Barrow – Mendes and Kashir Khan – the attorney representing Change Guyana and Citizenship Initiative contended that the Chief Elections Officer had breached the Orders of the Court of the Court of Appeal and the CCJ when he submitted his Elections Report to the Chair of GECOM.

CCJ Judge, Justice Winston Anderson

On Tuesday (June 23), the CCJ ordered that: “The Guyana Elections Commission and its officers and agents take no step to prejudice the fair hearing of this Application including, but not limited to, issuing a declaration of the results of the elections held on 2nd March 2020, until this Court issues final orders following the hearing and determination of the questions raised before this Honourable Court in the said Application.”

The Attorney General Basil Williams – the fifth named respondent – in offering clarity pointed out that the CEO’s report was submitted ahead of the order issued by the CCJ. Further, he pointed out that the Court of Appeal did not grant any of the coercive orders sought by David against the Chief Elections Officer, and, on that basis, the CEO may have submitted his report. He reminded the CCJ of President David Granger’s commitment to respect the rulings of the Court. But Mendes, while expressing his dissatisfaction that the CEO was not present during the Case Management Conference, said that the Elections Report should be withdrawn, noting that some 115,000 votes had been invalidated. “I was hoping that he would have been here today, so that in the event that what he did, as the Attorney General is suggesting, is simply an error, a mistake of some sort, that he would tell the Court that he would be withdrawing his report because it was done in error, not realising that the Court of Appeal’s order had been stayed,” the Trinidadian Senior Counsel told the court.

He added: “Maybe the Attorney General could tell him, that what he ought to do, which is the proper thing he ought to do at this stage in order to maintain the status quo as the Court of Appeal intended, that he should withdraw his report. But with this report hanging over all of our heads with 115,000 votes declared invalid all of a sudden, I don’t think that it is right that we should continue in this way.”

Interjecting, Justice Anderson, said from all indication an approach had not been made to the Court of Appeal, and the CCJ, at the time, could not have gone on interrogating the order made by the lower court. “I assume that no approach has been made to the Court of Appeal by the applicants in relation to what the Chief Elections Officer did or did not do. My interest is just to clarify that whatever the Chief Elections Officer did or did not do took place before the Order of this court,” Justice Anderson said with the Attorney General responding in the affirmative.

The judge said from all indications the Orders of the CCJ have been respected. “The fact of the matter is that the Order of this Court has been respected as I understand it and continues to be respected,” Justice Anderson further stated. He said the CCJ may not be the appropriate forum for submissions by parties, on any alleged contravention to the Orders issued by the Court of Appeal.

We cannot undo

Attorney General Basil Williams

Weighing in on the issue, which had surfaced, Justice Saunders echoed the sentiments of Justice Anderson. “We cannot undo what was done by the Chief Elections Officer,” President of the CCJ said while indicating that the attorneys could include in their submissions their contentions with respect to the case.

Notably, while the Court of Appeal here had ordered that the words “more votes are cast” in Article 177 (2) (b) to be interpreted to mean “more valid votes are cast,” the Court made it clear that in its narrow and special jurisdiction, as laid out in Article 177 (4), it could not grant the injunctive reliefs prayed for by David. In her application, David sought an order restraining the Chief Elections Officer from submitting to the Elections Commission, an Elections Report under Section 96 of the Representation of the People Act, Chapter 1:03 containing votes which are not valid and credible but the appellate judges agreed that it was not within the jurisdiction of the Appellate Court to grant such injunctive relief. The PPP/C has moved to the CCJ to have single order granted by the Court of Appeal struck out on the basis that it had no jurisdiction to hear the case.

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