Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo says the High Court’s ruling on the house-to-house registration challenge has vindicated the People’s Progressive Party Civic’s (PPP/C) position on the issue.
“So we are vindicated in telling people not to register. Your names cannot be removed from the register whether they have participated in the enumeration exercise or not, whether they live abroad, or they have gone in the interior and not at home.
“Not even GECOM, can now remove your name from that database and so this is key for us,” he said.
Chief Justice Roxane George ruled earlier today that house-to-house exercise being conducted is not unlawful or unconstitutional.
However, she did note that it is unconstitutional for qualified persons to be removed from the National Register of Registrants if they are not in the jurisdiction or is otherwise not at their residence during the registration exercise.
According to Jagdeo, “that is what we were fighting all along.”
“…because we felt that they were going to deregister thousands of people. Removing their names simply because they couldn’t find them at home or that they have gone abroad on vacation or something of that sort. So now that’s the key thing.”
This decision not to remove names from the present NRR and Official List of Electors (OLE) undercuts the major argument of the Government that they are “bloated” by some 200,000 names, which the H2H programme was supposed to address.
