AG appeals $2M judgment to Roxanne Myers for unlawful arrest

The Guyana Police Force (GPF) has on Friday been ordered to pay former Deputy Chief Elections Officer (DCEO) Roxanne Myers the sum of $2 million for unlawful arrest committed during a probe into elections fraud.
This ruling was handed down by Justice Simone Morris-Ramlall in the Demerara High Court, and it has also been ordered that the GPF pay $200,000 in court costs on or before September 9, 2024.
During her ruling, Justice Morris-Ramlall said the court did not find that Myers had been inhumanely treated during her detention, but awarded $2 million in compensatory damages.

The GPF was represented by the Attorney General’s Chambers, while Myers was represented by Attorney at Law Nigel Hughes.
Following the ruling on Friday, Attorney General Anil Nandlall filed an appeal on several grounds, including that the judge had erred in finding that there was no reasonable basis to arrest and detain Myers.
The AG Chambers has also stated that the judge erred in finding that the evidence before her did not reveal any basis for the arrest and detention of Myers, and is contending that the judge had effectively disregarded critical evidence of the witness Assistant Police Superintendent Ceaser when he testified about the reason for the arrest and detention of Myers.
Further, the AG Chambers is contending that Justice Ramlall erred when she concluded that Myers’s refusal to cooperate with the police could not be seen as preventing the course of justice; but, more importantly, the AG Chambers has said that the judge erred when she ruled that Myers’s refusal to answer questions about GECOM’s Statements of Polls for the March 2020 election could not be seen as preventing the course of justice.
Accordingly, the AG is requesting an order setting aside the ruling of Justice Ramlall.

RECAP
Myers was arrested in October 2022 after she surrendered herself at the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) Headquarters moments before the Police Force was able to issue a ‘Wanted’ bulletin for her arrest.
Lawyers representing Myers contended that she had been arrested for “perverting the course of justice”, but the Guyana Police Force (GPF) has contended that she had been detained for “conspiracy to defraud”.
The GPF reported that its ranks had been trying for over a month to question DCEO Myers in regard to electoral fraud committed at the March 2, 2020 polls. “However, those efforts were futile, as Ms. Myers made every effort to elude the Police investigators,” the GPF had said in explaining that a ‘Wanted’ bulletin had consequently been prepared, but before it was released, Myers had shown up at CID Headquarters in the company of her attorneys.
According to the GPF, “Ms. Myers was promptly arrested for the offence of ‘conspiracy to defraud’, and she was told of the allegation at the said time. She then exercised her right to remain silent.”
Myers is among nine persons before the court charged with electoral fraud. The others are former Returning Officer for Region Four, Clairmont Mingo; former Chief Elections Officer Keith Lowenfield; former People’s National Congress/Reform Chairperson Volda Lawrence; PNCR activist Carol Smith-Joseph; and GECOM employees Sheffern February, Enrique Livan, Michelle Miller and Denise Babb-Cummings. They are facing 28 charges relating to electoral fraud. Among the offences these defendants are accused of committing are: misconduct while holding public office; presenting falsified documentation; and planning to manipulate Guyana’s voters by presenting an inaccurate vote total.
Meanwhile, with only three hearings completed, the 2020 elections fraud trial, which was slated to continue on August 5, has been deferred until September, as presiding Magistrate Leron Daly has been placed on 30 days’ sick leave.