The Court of Appeal on Monday unanimously ruled that it will proceed with hearing an appeal against a 19-month-old judgement by Chief Justice (ag) Roxane George, SC in which she dismissed the APNU/AFC’s second election petition challenging the results of the 2020 General and Regional Elections and has fixed November 1 for a report hearing.
Filed by Claudette Thorne and Heston Bostwick, the election petition sought to have the election results invalidated on the ground of serious non-compliance with the Constitution of Guyana and electoral laws as it relates to the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM)’s conduct over those elections.
On Monday, the court’s bench comprising Chancellor of the Judiciary (ag) Justice Yonette Cummings-Edwards and Justices of Appeal Dawn Gregory and Rishi Persaud ruled in favour of a motion filed by Senior Counsel Roysdale Forde for the hearing of the matter to be expedited, noting that its reason for doing so is because of the public interest nature of the case and that no one should be turned away from the seat of justice.
Trinidadian Senior Counsel Douglas Mendes, who represented Vice President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo, one of the respondents in the appeal had, however, asked the appellate court to dismiss the motion, arguing that it was the petitioners who had failed to initiate the process to prosecute the matter.
In so doing, he argued that there would have been no resistance if the petitioners had filed the application for an urgent hearing by May 31, 2021, instead of August 30, to cater to the likelihood of a further appeal to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).
But Forde, who is also the shadow Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister, argued that this is not the case, stating: “The High Court documents which would be necessary to constitute an appeal… remain in the custody of the High Court.”
His clients, Forde pointed out, 19 months after the Chief Justice rendered her ruling, were forced to file the motion requesting an expedited hearing not only because she failed to deliver a written decision but because she failed to have the necessary documents prepared and sent to the Appeal Court.
Thorne and Bostwick had contended that Section 22 of the Elections Law (Amendment) Act and Order #60, also known as the Recount Order, were in violation of the Constitution.
But, in dismissing the petition, the Chief Justice held that the petitioners failed to present evidence to support that the conduct of the elections contravened the Constitution and electoral laws.
She ruled that neither Section 22 nor the Recount Order was ultra vires the Constitution, adding that Article 162 of the Constitution empowered GECOM to take whatever actions were necessary to conclude the elections, including embarking on a recount of all ballots.
