Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Chairperson, Retired Justice Claudette Singh is maintaining that every decision she took regarding the March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections and the subsequent national recount process was in accordance with the Constitution and laws of Guyana.
GECOM Chair, Retired Justice Claudette Singh
Justice Singh was at the time responding to reports of private criminal charges filed against her for alleged misconduct in office.
The three sets of private criminal charges for misconduct of public office against the GECOM Chair were filed Wednesday morning in the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts.
When contacted on Wednesday morning, Justice Singh told Guyana Times that she was not served with the notice of the charges at the time.
However, the GECOM Chair contended that everything she has done was in accordance with the Constitution and the laws of Guyana.
“I have received nothing, and what I did in everything was in accordance with the Constitution and the law. I do not know otherwise,” she asserted.
The first charge was filed by Keith Ondaan of Central Amelia’s Ward, Linden, who alleges that the GECOM Chair “acted recklessly and unlawfully” when she disregarded the advice of GECOM’s Legal Officer on March 16, and the advice of the Chief Parliamentary Counsel, Charles Fung-a-Fat, SC, on May 17, that the recount was unlawful and unconstitutional, and went ahead to gazette the Recount Order on May 4, and its amendment on May 29, 2020.
The second charge was filed by Melanie Damishana, East Coast Demerara (ECD) resident Lorraine Joseph, who is claiming that Justice Singh acted unlawfully and recklessly between May 29 and June 23, 2020 when she breached the gazetted Recount Order and the amended Recount Order.
Finally, Onita Walcott, of Victoria Village, ECD, also alleges that the GECOM Chair again acted recklessly and unlawfully between March 14 and June 23, 2020 when she refused to accept Chief Elections Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield’s elections reports.
The cases are scheduled to come up for hearing on August 5.
The CEO is also currently facing private criminal charges regarding conspiracy to commit fraud and breach of public trust. He appeared before the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts on Friday to answer to the three charges and was placed on a total of $450,000 bail.
These charges stemmed from the fact that despite being directed by Justice Singh on several occasions to compile his report using the results of the national recount, Lowenfield consistently failed to adhere to the instructions and submitted several reports with fraudulent figures.
The recount exercise showed that the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) won the elections with 233,336 votes while the caretaker A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) coalition obtained 217,920 votes – a difference of some 15,416 votes.
In his last report presented on July 11, Lowenfield had included the fraudulent figures of embattled Region Four Returning Officer (RO) Clairmont Mingo which were already proven as heavily inflated in favour of APNU/AFC.
The GECOM Chair subsequently discarded the initial declarations from the 10 Returning Officers and give the CEO one last chance to submit his report using the recount figures. But before he could have done so, coalition supporter Misenga Jones approached the High Court seeking to block GECOM from using the recount results to have a final elections declaration.
But Chief Justice (ag) Roxane George ruled last week that the 10 declarations by the ROs were overtaken by the recount exercise and as such, the only figures that should be used to make a final declaration are those emanating from the recount process. This was in keeping with a similar decision handed down by the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) earlier this month in a previous legal battle brought by another APNU/AFC supporter.
The CJ also dismissed Lowenfield’s fraudulent report in her ruling. But this decision is now being appealed by Jones.
Last weekend, the Court of Appeal heard arguments in the matter and was expected to deliver its judgement today. (G8)
