Judge refuses request for Region 4 SoPs to be used as evidence

…Attorneys believe court erred, will appeal all the way to CCJ

An application by Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo to have the controversial Region Four Statements of Poll (SoPs) tendered as evidence in a case brought against the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to block a recount of the ballots was on Friday thrown out by Justice Franklyn Holder.

The Judge handed down the ruling after first finding that the court did in fact have jurisdiction to hear the case that was brought by A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance for Change (APNU/AFC) candidate Ulita Grace Moore.
That litigation seeks to block a recount of the votes cast in Region Four at the recently-held General and Regional Elections — a recount that had been agreed to by APNU/AFC Presidential Candidate David Granger and Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo, as part of a Caricom initiative.
Jagdeo, through his Attorneys, this past week challenged the court’s ability to hear the case brought by Moore after lawyers for the Elections Commission vehemently objected to the request by Jagdeo to have the SoPs produced.

Efforts by Jagdeo’s lead Attorney, Douglas Mendez, to have the court stay its proceedings in order to facilitate an appeal were also refused by Justice Holder.
The Attorney-at-Law for the applicant, Moore, Roysdale Forde, himself an attorney for the APNU/AFC coalition, told media operatives at the High Court that Justice Holder, in handing down the ruling against Jagdeo, noted that such a request could not be accommodated through such an application, but rather by way of an elections petition.

It was noted that the request by the Opposition Leader dealt with the issue of tabulation of the SoPs in order to determine fraud, but this, as had been previously iterated by the Chief Justice, must be done by way of a petition.
Attorney-at-Law Anil Nandlall — another of Jagdeo’s lawyers on the case – told members of the media the Opposition did not believe that Moore’s case could be heard by Justice Holder, since that application questioned decisions of the Elections Commission.
Nandlall insists that this must be heard by way of an elections petition and has since announced that the team of Attorneys have already begun working on an appeal to the Full Court and the Appeal Court and the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) if needs be.

“We have signalled an intention to appeal that decision, because we believe that the learned Judge fell into error and we will prosecute our appeal to the very end,” he said.
According to the former Attorney General of Guyana, the laws are clear in that all decisions of the Commission can be challenged by an elections petition.
This, he said, is opposed to the decision of an officer within GECOM Secretariat, such as the Returning Officer.
Speaking to the second ruling by Justice Holder in refusing to have the SoPs tendered as evidence, Nandlall told media operatives “most importantly, the substantive matter is still there in Ulita Moore’s case”.
GECOM Attorney Neil Boston, in giving his take on the proceedings, reminded that Jagdeo’s application challenges the validity of the final result declared by RO Clairmont Mingo, on the basis it was fraudulent.
He was adamant, however, that “if Mr Jagdeo’s issue is a question of fraud, then he is saying that the election was not lawfully conducted and under Article 163 of the Constitution it says anything that has to do with whether an election has been lawfully conducted or the result of an election has been affected by some unlawful act or omission, then it has to go to a special court and you go to that court by elections petition”.
Boston told the media that the Opposition Leader could still be addressed, and that the relevant statutes set out the parameters under which this could be done.
Explaining the Judge’s decision, Boston said that the court found in determining jurisdiction in the Ulita Moore matter that while substantive judicial reviews would need to come by way of an elections petition, there can be an intermediate judicial review of an unlawful act.