‘Leave it to the courts’ –Surujbally on GECOM saga

By Jarryl Bryan

A determination of whether the President was on the right side or wrong side of history for unilaterally appointing retired Justice James Patterson as Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Chairman will be up to a court of law when a legal challenge is brought.

This is according to Dr. Steve Surujbally, Patterson’s predecessor at GECOM.
Declining to comment directly on the circumstances leading up to Patterson’s appointment, the long-serving GECOM Chairman referred to legal challenges expected from Leader of the Opposition, Bharrat Jagdeo.
“The way I see things are going, and I heard the leader of the Opposition saying that he will go to the courts on the matter; well, the lawyers will debate, and the lawyers will understand much more than I can (understand) the intricacies and the nuances of the issue. And they will make their decision,” he related.
Be that as it may, however, Surujbally expressed willingness to share with new GECOM Chairman, Justice Patterson, whatever knowledge he has at his disposal.
Patterson, 84, was sworn-in in a hastily arranged ceremony on Thursday night, and will be taking over a highly contentious portfolio.
“If the new Chairman requests any knowledge from me, and I can help, I surely will be very privileged to give him his answers,” Surujbally stated in an interview with this publication on Sunday.
Since Surujbally’s retirement, GECOM has been left headless. And the task of replacing him has since been a contentious one, as President David Granger has continuously rejected nominees for the post.
As required by the Constitution, the Opposition Leader had, in April last, submitted to President Granger a second list of six nominees for the post of Chairman of GECOM after his first list was rejected. That and a third list of nominees were rejected.
In a previous interview with this publication, GECOM Commissioner Sase Gunraj had said that allegations of corruption and other matters cannot be addressed by the commissioners while GECOM was without a Chairman.
In justifying his decision to hand pick 84-year-old Justice Patterson for this position, the President said that because of his extensive experience as a former Chief Justice of Grenada, “He has long judicial service, and we feel that he is a fit and proper person. So, it’s important for the reason I mentioned that we bring this to and end and continue with the business of Guyana,” he added.
The decision has not gone down well with a number of stakeholders, including the political Opposition. During a press conference on Thursday, Jagdeo announced that his party would be withdrawing its support from any form of cooperation with Government, and would also mount a legal challenge to the appointment.
In addition to expressing his intention to raise the matter with the diplomatic community, Jagdeo indicted that the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) would be calling on its support base countrywide to effct a national boycott.