High Court Judge Jo-Ann Barlow will on Monday, August 9 rule on an application by Chief Elections Officer Keith Lowenfield who is seeking to bar PPP/C election Commissioners Bibi Shadick and Sase Gunraj from voting on a motion to dismiss him.
Nigel Hughes, the lawyer for Lowenfield, filed the case earlier this month at the High Court in Demerara.
In June, PPP/C election commissioners Gunraj and Shadick tabled a motion containing 20 grounds on which they called for the immediate firing of Lowenfield.
Gunraj and Shadick – both lawyers – submitted that Lowenfield has breached his functions, duties, responsibilities, and obligations regarding the March 2020 General and Regional Elections.
Following the tabling of the motion, Chairperson of the Guyana Elections Commission Retired Judge Claudette Singh wrote to Lowenfield, asking him to show cause why he should not be fired.
Lowenfield, however, argues that the participation of Gunraj and Shadick in the deliberations of their own complaint against him is in breach of the rules of natural justice.
He argues too that their participation in the deliberations on their own complaint against him infected the deliberation of GECOM with bias.
Against this backdrop, he is asking the High Court to grant an order restraining Gunraj and Shadick from voting on the motion to dismiss him.
After the tabling of the motion for his dismissal, Lowenfield was instructed by GECOM’s Chairperson to proceed on annual leave.
The Chief Elections Officer is facing several electoral fraud charges for his alleged attempts to rig the March 2, 2020 General and Regional elections in favour of the APNU/AFC.
