President needs not justify rejection of Jagdeo’s nominees - Ramjattan

President needs not justify rejection of Jagdeo’s nominees – Ramjattan

Jan 14, 2017 News

Based on the wording of Article 161(2) of the Constitution, Minister of Public Security and Alliance for Change leader, Khemraj Ramjattan, asserted that President David Granger does not have to explain why he rejected the six names submitted by Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo for the post of Chairperson of the Guyana Elections Commission.

The President now awaits a second list from the opposition leader to choose the next Chairperson of GECOM.

“That person (nominee) must be a person that is acceptable to the President and in my understanding of what transpired between the President’s letters and the opposition leader, he has found those names on the first list as not being acceptable to him, and that is wholly constitutional.”
Ramjattan said at the Alliance for Change’s press conference yesterday that since the first list has been rejected a second round of selection is accommodated by the constitution. If those names too are not accepted by the President he can move to select the chairperson of his own volition as he is empowered to do by law.
He said that there is absolutely no reason requiring the President to give to the leader of the opposition an explanation as to why he would have rejected the first list.
“No court of law can compel him (President David Granger) to so do. It’s a political question and the issue is non-justiciable. So all this nonsense that Anil Nandlall is talking that he is going to take it to court and now Jagdeo is jumping on that bandwagon that he is gonna take it straight to Caribbean Court of Justice, you have to go through High Court, Court of Appeal before you meet CCJ if they don’t know.”
Ramjattan, who is also an Attorney-at-Law, said that it is solely constitutional what the President is doing. He said that the two opposition members can only want to do their own mischief as it relates to the President’s statement about the need for a judge. In light of this theory, the AFC leader said that he is only concerned with the President finding the names unacceptable, everything else is immaterial.
The minister was then reminded that at the media brunch held last Sunday at State House, President Granger had stressed that the list did not contain any current or past judge or someone eligible to be a judge, which is required by the constitution, as his reason for rejecting the list.
To this, Ramjattan said, “Whatever the reason the President gives, even if it is wrong reasoning, I don’t know about what you are talking about. I was told that he said that it was unacceptable. If he proceeded to give reasons, whatever the reasoning that does not matter because that is not relevant. At this stage it is the fact that he does not find them acceptable.”
He said that reasons are not required within the realms of politics. According to Ramjattan, no person can ask the opposition leader to give reasons why he selected his first six names against 600 other persons.
When asked whether he would consider the lists were submitted in the past which did not contain judges as being constitutional, Ramjattan said that they were completely constitutional.
However, he said that it does not mean that the current President has to accept the first list he is given particularly since a second round is provided for in the constitution.
Opposition leader Bharrat Jagdeo at his party’s press conference on Thursday had said that after receiving an official letter from the President saying that the names “seem” not to comply with the constitution he has written requesting an explanation of the word “seem” and also to sit down and discuss the matter.
According to Jagdeo if that engagement does not bear fruit, his party is prepared to take the matter up to the Caribbean Court of Justice for Article 161(2) to be interpreted.

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