Election CoI: GECOM staff remain silent amid pending criminal charges

The testimonies of persons employed by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) could not be pursued on Tuesday during the Commission of Inquiry, owing to pending investigations and criminal charges instituted against them.
GECOM employees, Denise Babb-Cummings, Shefern February, Michelle Miller and Carolyn Duncan were summoned to appear before the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the March 2020 General and Regional Elections.

Shefern February

They initiated proceedings in the form of an injunction one day prior, on Monday, citing that the summons amount to a breach of their constitutional rights against self-incrimination under Article 144 of the Constitution of Guyana. Respondents were named as the Commission of Inquiry and the Attorney General, Anil Nandlall.
Their application called for a declaration that the State has breached its duty to ensure that every person charged with a criminal offence is given a fair trial; a declaration that the Commission has no power to compel the attendance of any witness charged with a criminal offence; and damages in excess of $50 million each for the breach of their constitutional right.
They also asked for an order quashing the summons and a permanent injunction preventing the CoI from compelling the attendance of anyone charged with a criminal offence.
However, Babb-Cummings, February and Duncan appeared before the CoI with Attorney Eusi Anderson on Tuesday morning where Chairman, Retired Justice Stanley John reiterated that neither were granted by the High Court.
In 2020, Registration Officers Shefern February, Michelle Miller and Denise Babb-Cummings were facing charges in relation to electoral fraud. They were accused of inflating the results of Region Four – the country’s largest voting district – to give the APNU/AFC coalition a majority win at the polls.
Assistant Registration Officer, Carolyn Duncan is still being investigated by the Guyana Police Force and is on station bail. It is alleged that she, along with others, conspired to rig the elections.

Carolyn Duncan

Anderson told the CoI, “On that basis, it is my respectful view that their attendance here as witnesses to speak to issues for which Duncan is to be potentially criminally prosecuted and the others, actually criminally prosecuted, I am asking that their biometric data or anything that is in the public information be that data enlisted.”
In a correspondence also addressed to the CoI Chairman on Tuesday, Anderson also penned that any question outside of the strictly delineated parameter “will be met with an invocation of the constitutional right to silence and against self-incrimination.”
“My clients are before the criminal courts of Guyana. We are firm in our conviction that compulsion to attend, and testify as witnesses at the March 2020 General and Regional Elections Inquiry is diametrically opposed to their constitutional right to silence while being prosecuted by the State for rigging the very March 2020 General and Regional Elections,” the letter stated.

Denise Babb-Cummings

Nevertheless, they were given a chance to make any statements before the Commission, to which they all chose to remain silent.
Stemming from the March 2, 2020 elections, some 32 electoral fraud cases have been filed in the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts against several political activists including APNU/AFC’s Volda Lawrence and GECOM officials including former Chief Elections Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield, his Deputy Roxanne Myers and embattled Region Four Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo. (G12)