IN light of the latest delay in the much-anticipated trial on election fraud, Minister of Legal Affairs and Attorney General, Anil Nandlall, S.C has emphasised the need for the judiciary to promptly restore its credibility in this regard.
The Minister made these remarks during Tuesday’s airing of his weekly show, ‘Issues in the News’ where he noted that the further adjournment of the trial to the end of October accounts for another delay of about 45 days.
Nandlall stated that when the matter was called on Tuesday, it was set to be for report in relation to how the case will proceed.

However, he was further informed that another message was sent to the attorneys that the magistrate was still on leave and, as such, the matter was adjourned to October 31.
“I have spoken repeatedly about this matter over the years; I have been criticised for the comments that I have made in relation to this matter, and my comments have been consistent. My comments relate to what I consider to be an orchestrated attempt to delay these matters,” he expressed.
With this, he said these delays were stated with collective attempts by defence counsel pursuing a strategy of finding ways to get adjournments in the cases.
He added that they have made numerous technical and other objections and also filed challenges in the High Court.

Nandlall said, “They have made excuses why adjournments should be granted. The prosecution has endured it all. The technical objections, most of them have been overruled. The Challenge filed in the High Court has been dismissed and finally, when we felt that the way was paved for the trials to begin and to proceed with some degree of alacrity, although belated, we are now confronted with a series of adjournments.”

To this end, the attorney-general said that over the past three years he has expressed comments regarding the way different magistrates have been shifting the cases from court to court, in what he believes is a clear attempt to not hear these cases.
Further to this, he said that the cases are of grave public and national importance as the conduct of the persons who have been charged and are before the courts struck at the foundation of the democratic process of Guyana.
“That conduct attempted to alter the will of the people as expressed by their ballots. That conduct sought to derail the democratic elections of this country, it sought to have a different government in place instead of one elected by the people,” he said while reminding that these are not ordinary run-of-the-mill cases.

With this, he opined that in any other judiciary, the judiciary would have accorded the highest priority to cases of this nature. However, this seems to not be the case in Guyana.
“The judiciary must act and act quickly to reprieve its credibility in this matter,” he expressed.

The Attorney General further added that what is transpiring cannot accord with the principles of justice understood by the ordinary man and noted that every Guyanese should be concerned with this state of affairs.
Additionally, he said that Guyana is quickly approaching another election and there is no determination yet of fraud charges arising out of elections that occurred four years ago.
Against this backdrop, Nandlall went on to express that the Caribbean Court of Justice has repeatedly encouraged the lower courts here to ensure that matters of this nature which concern electoral issues, the constitution, democratic and constitutional processes be ventilated with speed through the system.