The Constitution is clear; a person other than a judge is eligible

Jan 19, 2017 Letters

Dear Editor,
The President of Guyana David Granger acted erroneously and outside of the Constitution, the Supreme law of this land, when he rejected the list of nominees submitted by the Leader of the Opposition Dr B. Jagdeo. It is a strange anomaly that he would have said that the list is unconstitutional and that he was trying to correct an unconstitutional practice since there are numerous precedents to say otherwise and the law itself is pellucid on the said matter.
It is clear that when Section 161(2) speaks of ‘a fit and proper person’ it was meant to offer a solution in the case where the first qualification is not met, and that is, of finding a High Court Judge, an Appellate Court Judge or former ones. The remedy was offered but the President cast it aside. Why did he do this? Was he advised wrongly or is it the case where he wants to frustrate the process and appoint a Chairman of his own choice?
The mischief rule of statutory interpretation makes it clear that in this case the ‘mischief’ that the second option given in Section 161(2) was meant to remedy is the situation if the qualification in the first part is not met. The lawmakers were not leaving anything to chance so that the nomination and appointment process for GEOCOM’s Chairman is frustrated. The AG must know this!
We have thus seen a flagrant disregard for a simple literal interpretation of the laws and the literal interpretation is rudely dumped just because of this government’s misplaced tendency to rule at all cost. This also happened at the Local Government Elections in the case of the tied NDCs- a simple section of the LGE laws was conveniently misinterpreted to foist its own people into the Chairman and Vice-Chairmanship positions. This is a serious practice and it will mutate later on into more pronounced and blatant forms of power-misuse if it is not checked in time. I will never believe that with all the legal minds in this Coalition Government that they are simply misinterpreting the laws.
If the President wants Guyanese to believe that he is a just and fair leader then he should use the list provided by Dr.Jadgeo or give some more plausible reasons for rejecting it! The reasons given cannot hold water!
Haseef Yusuf (FCCA; MBA)
Region 6 Councillor

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