CCJ to hear Govt’s Parliamentary Secretaries appeal on July 30

The Government of Guyana has approached the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) to overturn the local courts decision to annul the appointments of Vickash Ramkissoon and Sarah Browne as Parliamentary Secretaries. Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall on Tuesday filed written submissions.
During his weekly programme ‘Issues in the News’, Nandlall said the case is fixed for July 30, 2024. He is confident that the CCJ will rule in favour of the Government.
“I have spoken at length of a distinct pattern that in certain types of cases, the Court of Appeal rules against the Government and the Caribbean Court of Justice reverses the court of Appeal’s [judgement] and this has been a consistent pattern in these types of cases,” he said.
Opposition Chief Whip Christopher Jones in 2020 challenged the appointments of Ramkissoon and Browne as Parliamentary Secretaries to the Amerindian Affairs and Agriculture Ministries respectively.

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 in 2023, Court of Appeal Judge Dawn Gregory affirmed George’s ruling. In dismissing the appeal, Gregory ruled that Browne and Ramkissoon were 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.
Attorney General Anil Nandlall, SC, in his appeal against Justice George’s decision had argued, among other things, that the Chief Justice erred and misdirected herself in law by failing to appreciate that although there are similarities in the two cases (Technocrat Ministers/ Parliamentary Secretaries), there are also differences in the constitutional regime regarding the appointment of Technocratic Ministers in comparison to Parliamentary Secretaries.
He had submitted that historically, in Guyana, Parliamentary Secretaries were appointed from among members of the National Assembly, and the category of persons who may be appointed as Parliamentary Secretaries was expanded in the 1980 Constitution to include persons who were qualified to be elected.
He reminded that in the ninth Parliament, Pauline Sukhai, now Amerindian Affairs Minister, whose name appeared on the List of Candidates for the PPP/C, was appointed a Parliamentary Secretary to assist the tourism minister as a non-elected member of the National Assembly, without any objection for the duration of that Parliament.
He also reminded that during the tenth Parliament, Joseph Hamilton, now Labour Minister, whose name did not appear on the List of Candidates for PPP/C or any other List of Candidates, was appointed a Parliamentary Secretary as a non-elected member without any objection for the duration of that Parliament.
Having regard to these circumstances, Nandlall had argued that the appeal against the Chief Justice’s ruling is not only grounded in merit, but raises fundamental issues of interpretation of the Constitution, as well as issues integral to Guyana’s parliamentary and constitutional democracy.