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President Granger loses immunity after today – Jagdeo

Mar 21, 2019 News

Numerous consultations with some of the best legal minds, both locally and internationally, indicate one thing, according to Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo – that the government will be illegal after March 22.
This has a number of implications, and the most impactful of those is that President David Granger will lose his Presidential immunity and the power to operate in his full capacity, says Jagdeo.
During a press conference at the Office of the Leader of the Opposition, Jagdeo said that the President’s occupation of office after March 22 will be illegal, that it will constitute a coup d’état. He said that such a term is usually reserved for an overthrow of the government, using force, but that this “illegal occupation of office” is one as well, “because the government has overthrown Constitutional order in Guyana”.
Jagdeo said that while there isn’t public consensus on whether the Chancellor should become Head of State after the 90-day Constitutional deadline, there is consensus that, “if President Granger remains in office, he would become illegal, and all of the acts he commits from March 22, would also be illegal. The President would have to be answerable for all of those acts, either criminally or civilly.”
“You abdicated your responsibility to name an election date. You got your minions at Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to avoid even starting the preparations. You’re getting them to delay the elections. You are claiming that you can’t name an election date until they’re ready, in violation of your Constitutional authority and mandate as a President, defaulting back to some other body. Then, you’re coming to claim ‘I have to be here out of necessity’,” the Opposition Leader said of the President.
Since Presidential immunities are conferred by the Constitution, Jagdeo said that the President would lose all of those immunities after the deadline, and can no longer claim entitlement. “He cannot claim necessity” because the doctrine of necessity cannot be applied when the situation is self-inflicted.
Similarly, the Opposition Leader said that the ministers of government would also be operating illegally if they stay in office tomorrow, and that they would have to be personally answerable for whatever acts they commit in their capacities as ministers.
“They are not entitled to use state resources for any purpose whatsoever, because they are illegally occupying the office,” he said, “All of the acts of the government would become voidable.”
He reiterated his previous warnings to contractors and other members of the private sector that they should not sign any agreement with an illegal government, because “every one of those agreements would be voidable”, including agreements with foreign investors.

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