The Court of Appeal today upheld the High Court’s decision to annul the appointments of Vickash Ramkissoon and Sarah Browne as Parliamentary Secretaries, noting that while there are merits to the appellants’ arguments, the High Court was correct to follow the precedent set by former Chief Justice, the late Ian Chang.
The appointments of Ramkissoon and Browne as Parliamentary Secretaries to the Amerindian Affairs and Agriculture Ministries respectively, were challenged in the High Court in 2020 by Opposition Chief Whip Christopher Jones.
He had contended that Browne and Ramkissoon cannot be appointed as non-elected parliamentarians, since they were named on the List of Candidates presented by the PPP/C for the March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections.
Jones’ case was first upheld by acting Chief Justice Roxane George in 2021 and on Tuesday, Court of Appeal Judge Dawn Gregory affirmed George’s ruling. In dismissing the appeal, Gregory ruled that Browne and Ramkissoon are not lawful members of the National Assembly since they were on the candidate list.
According to Gregory, CJ George did not misconstrue the constitution when she found that the appellants were not eligible to be appointed as non-voting members. The Court of Appeal noted that the Chief Justice acted in law and the principle of stare decisis, by following the precedent set in Attorney General vs Morian, which was first decided by now-late Chief Justice Ian Chang in 2016 and whose decision was later affirmed by the Court of Appeal.
Justice Gregory noted that the definition of qualified to be elected was intended to refer to persons who had never faced the electorate.
Both Browne and Ramkissoon do not fit this bill, since they were candidates on the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) candidate list but were not extracted from the list of elected Members of Parliament. She therefore ruled their appointments unlawful and awarded costs.
