A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Counting Agent Misenga Jones has filed an appeal with the Guyana Court of Appeal (COA) seeking to overturn the decision of acting Chief Justice Roxane George in the case seeking to compel the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to utilise the 10 Returning Officers’ declarations as the basis for announcing the winner of the March 2, 2020 elections.
Court of Appeal
Jones, through her Attorneys – Trinidadian Senior Counsel John Jeremie, APNU/AFC candidate Roysdale Forde, Keith Scotland, Mayo Robertson and Rondelle Keller – filed the appeal just after 14:00h on Tuesday seeking to have the CJ’s decision overturned.
The Court of Appeal has set the case management proceedings for 15:00h today. The hearing will seek to outline the details proceeding into the substantive hearing.
On Monday, Justice George dismissed Jones’ application for judicial review on the grounds that the issues were res judicata, which meant that they have already been ventilated and pronounced upon by a competent court and could not be relitigated.
Jones had approached the Court seeking several orders inclusive of a declaration that the gazetted Order 60 of 2020 and the recount results extracted therefrom were invalid and unconstitutional; a declaration that the report required by the Chief Elections Officer (CEO) under Section 96 of the Representation of the People Act must be based on the votes counted and information furnished by the 10 Returning Officers from their respective Electoral Districts which were submitted to the CEO on March 13 and a declaration that the CEO was not subjected to the directions of the Chair of the Commission on the contents of his report.
In total, Jones had sought 28 relief orders from the court but all save and except for the issue of jurisdiction were dismissed.
Seeking to overturn
In the appeal, Jones is contending that the Chief Justice (ag) erred in law when she dismissed the case. As a consequence, she was seeking to have the decision overturned and the relief granted.
Jones’s application listed 23 grounds for the appeal and stated that Justice George erred in law when she held that the issue of the constitutionality of Section 22 of the Election Laws Amendment Act was res judicata; when she held that the issues raised in the case were res judicata. Jones’s application is claiming that the CJ misconstrued paragraphs 106 and 107 of the judgment of the majority of the Court of Appeal in the Ulita Grace Moore v Guyana Elections Commission; that she failed to find that the Chair of GECOM and/or GECOM had acted outside their constitutional and/or statutory power; that she failed to properly construe the terms and provisions of Order 60 of 2020; that she ruled that the validity of Order 60 of 2020 was res judicata.
Jones is further contending that Justice George erred in law and that she failed to consider that GECOM had exceeded its constitutional and statutory power when it issued and established the element, mechanism and parameters of Order 60 of 2020 and executed Order 60 of 2020 in such terms. Additionally, the APNU/AFC-backed agent submits that the Justice George further erred when she held that the declarations of the Returning Officers made pursuant to Section 84 of the Representation of the People Act had been overtaken by events, were no longer useful and cannot be resurrected; when she failed to consider the distinction between the unconstitutionality of Section 22 of the Election Laws Amendment Act and acting in excess of the constitutional and/or statutory powers of the Chair and/or GECOM in establishing and executing the recount in accordance with elements, mechanism and parameters which are unconstitutional and set out in Order 60 of 2020.
In her 27-page ruling on Monday, Justice George chronicled the reasons for her decision.
The acting CJ, based on the arguments presented by the Attorney General and the CEO that the Caribbean Court of Justice invalidated the recount in the ruling of Irfaan Ali et al v Eslyn David et al, said the contention is flawed, since the Court, in fact, upheld the validity of Order 60.
Justice George furthered that Jones’s view that the letters written to the CEO by the Chair, directing him to prepare and present his report using the valid votes from the recount were invalid, in fact, came into conflict with the assertions of the CCJ as it relates to the validity of votes.
The CCJ had determined that validity could only mean that votes that, on the face of it, are valid – after the weeding out of spoilt or rejected ballots. In keeping with that, the acting CJ noted that as a result, Jones’s contention “has no merit”.
She found that Lowenfield could not be a “lone ranger” and should be subjected to the directions of the Commission. Justice George furthered that she was forced to disagree with the submission of Lowenfield having a constitutional mandate under Article 177, rather it was the Chair and Commission that have the mandate. She explained that the CEO was a functionary of the Commission and, therefore, could not act on his own, adding that he had certain duties as regards tabulating results as provided for in Section 96 of the Representation of the People Act.
The acting CJ stated that while the CEO was solely in charge of producing his report, one could expect that the logical thing was that he received guidance from the Commission. She found that Justice Singh sought to do that when she wrote to Lowenfield several times – June 16, July 9, July 10 and July 13, instructing him to prepare and present his report.
The national recount shows that the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) won the March 2 polls with 233,336 votes cast in its favour while APNU/AFC secured 217,920 votes.
The cases brought by APNU/AFC supporters are further compounding the electoral impasse and block the declaration of the results using the results obtained from a transparent and credible national recount of the ballots. Many have seen this move to the Court of Appeal as one by the APNU/AFC to further prolong the election impasse and signal its determination to not leave office. (G2)
