CoA sets December 7 for election petition case management hearing

– parties to prepare, file record of appeal by Nov 22

The Court of Appeal (CoA) has set December 7 for the Case Management Conference (CMC) that has to be conducted before the appeal of the April 2021 dismissal of the second election petition challenging the results of the March 2, 2020 elections can be heard.

This date was set on Tuesday by acting Chancellor Justice Yonette Cummings-Edwards and Appellate Judges Rishi Persaud and Dawn Gregory. Additionally, the Appeals Court set November 22, 2022, for the preparation, filing, and serving of the record of appeal.
Claudette Thorne and Heston Bostwick, the petitioners, are seeking to have the results of the March 2020 General and Regional Elections invalidated on the grounds of serious non-compliance with the Constitution of Guyana and electoral laws as it relates to the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM’s) conduct over the polls.
They are being represented by Senior Counsels Roysdale Forde and John Jeremie, as well as Attorneys-at-Law Selwyn Pieters and Mayo Robertson. Their petition was dismissed on April 26, 2021, by acting Chief Justice Roxane George.
In June 2021, Forde appealed to the appellate court against the Chief Justice’s decision. Asked in August 2022 what was causing the delay in the hearing of the case, Forde had told Guyana Times that the record of appeal is not prepared, because the court does not have the Chief Justice’s written decision. He had also indicated his intention of filing an application to have the election petition hearing expedited.

The motion for the expedition of the appeal was duly filed by Forde and heard by the appellate court on October 3. The trio ruled in favour of the motion, noting that their reason for doing so was because of the public interest nature of the case.

Dismissal
The petitioners have contended that Section 22 of the Elections Law (Amendment) Act and Order #60, also known as the Recount Order, violated the Constitution of Guyana. However, in dismissing the petition, the Chief Justice had held that the petitioners failed to present evidence to support that the conduct of the elections contravened the Constitution and electoral laws.
She ruled that neither Section 22 nor the Recount Order was ultra vires the Constitution, adding that Article 162 of the Constitution empowered GECOM to take whatever actions were necessary to conclude the elections, including embarking on a recount of all ballots.
Alluding to the events that occurred after the close of polls, Justice George noted, “Given the difficulties, it does appear that it would not have been prudent for GECOM to declare the results in the peculiar circumstances that accompanied the completion of the process of the March 2 Elections. A combination of Article 162 (1) (b) of the Constitution and Section 22 confer the power upon GECOM to issue this [Recount] Order if GECOM considered it necessary or expedient to ensure impartiality, fairness, and compliance… as regards the election process.”
But coalition lawyers in their appeal contended that Justice George erred in law when she ruled that Section 22 of the Elections Law (Amendment) Act 2000 and Order #60 made thereunder were not in violation of the Constitution.
According to them, by virtue of their application for the election results to be declared invalid, both Section 22 and Order #60, which flowed directly from Article 162, were in conflict with and/or contravened Article 177 of the Constitution.

Previous petition
Both of the A Partnership for National Unity and Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) election petitions have been dismissed by the acting Chief Justice. In January 2021, she had dismissed the APNU/AFC’s election petition, which was filed by Brennan Nurse and Monica Thomas owing to their non-compliance with effecting service on President David Granger.
The party appealed her ruling to the Court of Appeal of Guyana, which by a majority decision on December 21, 2021, held that it had jurisdiction to hear an appeal against a ruling of the High Court to dismiss an election petition on the basis of procedural impropriety.
In so doing, the Court of Appeal rejected arguments by Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister Anil Nandlall, SC, that the court had no jurisdiction to hear and determine the appeal, neither from statute, the Constitution nor does it have an inherent jurisdiction.
The certified results from the recount exercise supervised by GECOM and a high-level team from the Caribbean Community (Caricom) pellucidly showed that the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) won with 233,336 votes over the coalition’s 217,920.