Parliamentary secretaries’ case to be taken to CCJ

…AG underscores importance of final decision by higher court

The People’s Progressive Party/Civic Government has signalled its intention to further appeal Tuesday’s Court of Appeal judgement in the case of the Parliamentary Secretaries.
On Tuesday, the Court of Appeal ruled that the appointments of Vickash Ramkissoon and Sarah Brown as Parliamentary Secretaries were unlawful. The Government has wasted little time in signalling its intention, with Attorney General Anil Nandlall making it clear that Government would appeal the ruling to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).
During his programme, Issues in the News, Nandlall noted the importance of settling the constitutional question surrounding the case. He acknowledged that this is not the first time the PPP/C has had cause to take a decision from the Court of Appeal to the CCJ.
“We will be appealing to the Caribbean Court of Justice. I believe that it is imperative that we clarify this area of the law. The Court of Appeal has ruled against us, as the Court of Appeal has done on many occasions, and we have appealed to the Caribbean Court of Justice and the CCJ reversed the Court of Appeal decision,” Nandlall said.
The appointments of Ramkissoon and Browne as Parliamentary Secretaries to the respective Ministries of Amerindian Affairs and Agriculture were challenged in the High Court in 2020 by Opposition Chief Whip Christopher Jones. He had contended that Browne and Ramkissoon cannot be appointed as non-elected parliamentarians, since they were named on the List of Candidates presented by the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) for the March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections.
Jones’s case was first upheld by acting Chief Justice (CJ) Roxane George in 2021, and Court of Appeal Judge Dawn Gregory affirmed George’s ruling on Tuesday, July 25, 2023. In dismissing the appeal, Gregory ruled that Browne and Ramkissoon are not lawful members of the National Assembly, since they were on the Candidate List.
Having considered all the arguments, Justice Gregory noted that, despite the merits of the appellants’ arguments, the meaning of elected member in Article 232 of the Constitution of Guyana has been pronounced upon before, such as in the case of Trotman vs Attorney General.
Further, Justice Gregory noted that the Chief Justice acted in law and the principle of Stare Decisis by following the precedent set in Attorney General vs Morian, which was first decided by the late Chief Justice Ian Chang in 2016, and whose decision was later affirmed by the Court of Appeal.
In 2015, PPP/C member Dennis Morian had filed a constitutional motion against then Attorney General Basil Williams, SC, challenging the legality of the appointments of former A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance for Change (APNU/AFC) Technocrat Ministers Keith Scott and Winston Felix.
Felix was then the Minister of Citizenship and Scott was then the Minister with responsibility for Labour, and they were candidates on the APNU/AFC’s List of Candidates for the 2015 General and Regional Elections.
AG vs Morian is a case that saw the late former Chief Justice Chang overturning the appointments of APNU technocrat Ministers Keith Scott and Winston Felix in 2016. Since they had both been on the APNU/AFC List of Candidates for the 2015 elections, Chang had ruled that they were unlawfully occupying their seats.
Then-Attorney General Basil Williams had appealed Justice Chang’s decision to the Court of Appeal, but had lost. (G3)