Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs has strongly condemned the court action against the national Covid-19 measures which was mounted by several Trade Unions , arguing that the organisations are seeking to unleash mayhem by trying to get the government to cancel its vaccination policy.
The Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU), the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) and their umbrella body, the Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) on Tuesday asked the High Court to quash the Covid-19 Emergency Measures (No. 20) Notice dated the 29th day of July, 2021.
Among their main contention is the national vaccination policy, whereby several categories of workers have been mandated to take the jabs, or otherwise, produce regular PCR tests. They are arguing that this measure amounts to coercion.
Commenting on this development on his weekly programme “Issues in the News”, the Attorney General posited that “the impact of what this action seeks, the devastation that it can cause in our country, the mayhem and chaos that it can perpetuate, the level of death and the disaster that it can permeate, let all of that sink in and you understand where we are in Guyana and how backward the political opposition is.”
“This what they’re doing here is an act that can lead to genocide, this is an attack on human rights, this is human rights tragedy,” Nandlall posited as he continued to warn of the implications of the case.
“If they win this case, the government must shut down the vaccine programme, we must allow everyone to don’t wear masks, we must allow everyone to go into schools and allow everyone to do what they like, we must remove all regulatory framework and the country must continue as normal as though there is no pandemic,” the Attorney General explained.
In justifying his labelling of the court action as an Opposition initiative, Nandlall pointed out that the players involved as politically-aligned.
“These three Unions are nothing else but fronts for the APNU+AFC. This is the APNU+AFC attacking the government’s vaccine programme by three of their satellite apologists organisations and through a lawyer who is obviously a member of theirs, he was a candidate on their list, so, they’re not even intelligent enough to fashion a proper disguise,” the Attorney General contended. The lawyer he referred to is Darren Wade.
Moreover, Nandlall went on to point out that those Opposition persons who seeking to attack the vaccination programme and dissuade the populace from getting immunised, are already vaccinated against the novel coronavirus.
“The Union Leaders who are named here Coretta McDonald, Lincoln Lewis and Don Gardener, I am betting my last dollar that they are also fully vaccinated. Darren Wade, the lawyer, I am prepared to bet he is fully vaccinated,” Nandlall contended.
Furthermore, Nandlall highlighted the duplicity in the Opposition’s actions, noting that the measures which are being challenged originated under the presidency of their leader, David Granger.
“The gazetted that they are seeking to challenge which was published was basically a republication that which President Granger had made under the Public Health Ordinance while we were in the Opposition,” Nandlall explained.
