THE Court of Appeal has set October 3 for an urgent hearing of a motion filed by the APNU+AFC concerning dismissed Election Petition 88 of 2020, which was thrown out by the High Court last year.

On August 30, 2022, Senior Counsel Roysdale Forde filed legal documents on behalf of petitioners Claudette Thorne and Heston Bostwick seeking an early hearing for the notice of motion and appeal.

In the notice of appeal, the applicants are challenging the April 2021 ruling of Chief Justice (ag) Roxane George, S.C., who dismissed the case.

In that matter, Thorne and Bostwick had asked the High Court to determine the legality of the March 2 elections, and the results that led to the declaration and allocation of seats in the National Assembly.

They sought an order directing the Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Justice (ret’d) Claudette Singh to declare former President David Granger the winner of the March 2, 2020, General and Regional Elections.

However, the Chief Justice struck out the petition on the ground of serious non-compliance with the Constitution of Guyana and electoral laws as it relates to GECOM’s conduct of those elections.

She also found that the petitioners failed to present evidence to support claims that the conduct of those elections contravened the Constitution and the country’s electoral laws.

Dissatisfied, the aggrieved petitioners moved to the Appeal Court and, among other things, are contending that the Chief Justice erred in law and misdirected herself when she misapplied the doctrine of strict compliance.

Another claim is that the Chief Justice erred and misdirected herself when she failed to consider the objective of the petition in making her decision based on the content of the Affidavit of Service.

The first petition, Election Petition 99 of 2020 was filed on behalf of petitioners Monica Thomas and Brennan Nurse.

In January 2021, the Chief Justice also threw out this application on the grounds of late service, non-service, or improper service. The petitioners then moved to the Court of Appeal to challenge this decision.

In the December 21, 2021, 2-1 decision, the Chancellor of the Judiciary Justice Yonette Cummings-Edwards and Justice of Appeal Dawn Gregory said that the CoA has jurisdiction to hear and determine the appeal that was filed.

However, Justice of Appeal Rishi Persaud disagreed, as, according to him, the applicants, Thomas and Nurse, had no right to appeal, since there was no final decision by Chief Justice George.

Attorney-General and Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall, S.C., had long argued that the Appeal Court does not have jurisdiction to hear and determine the appeal of that election petition.

The Chancellor, however, had granted an application for leave to Nandlall and Vice-President Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, who is also the General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), to move to the Caribbean Court of Justice to ventilate the issue of jurisdiction.

She also granted a stay of the CoA’s judgement. The CCJ is expected to rule soon on the PPP’s challenge.