WHAT IS A MAJORITY OF ONE?

May 28, 2019 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The decision of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) on the no confidence vote of December 22, 2018, in Guyana’s National Assembly, will decide whether the science of mathematics remains the same or has to be altered.
Already, the argument that 34 is a majority of 65 has created bemusement. Guyana is being parodied around the Caribbean.
One week ago, a letter writer to the Newsday newspaper of Trinidad and Tobago suggested that the argument that 33 is not a majority of 65 “lends itself to many other hypotheses which exemplify how sometimes the law can make fools of us, thanks to the wiles of self-serving politicians”.
He noted that by the same logic, three is not a majority of five since half of five is 2.5, which must then be rounded off to 3 and one added which is four. Similarly, two would not be a majority of three since you would need a unanimous decision for there to be a majority vote, according to the logic that 34 is a majority of 65. This, he says, means that three has no minority.
But why stop at 3? Why not apply the law to all the numbers between 1 and 65?
What then is the majority of 1? According to the formula which is being argued by the Government of Guyana, half of one is a half. This must then be rounded off to 1. And then 1 is added. We thus arrive at the absurd and impossible position that a majority of 1 is 2. How can the greater part of a number be greater than the number itself?
If the CCJ upholds the majority decision of Guyana’s Court of Appeal, this will rewrite the science of mathematics. It will mean that mathematicians will have to come up with a solution as to how to teach schoolchildren what is a majority and what is a minority, Textbooks on this subject will have to be rewritten.
The ‘no half man’ rule (used by the Government of Guyana) would mean that a majority of 11 would be 7. But this contradicts the established formula in the text ‘Nature of Mathematics’, written by Karl J. Smith, who said that a majority of 11 is 6.
If the math is overturned, a great deal of confusion can result. The decision, if unrestricted to the no-confidence motion, can have implications for decisions passed in our appellate court, where three judges usually sit. There have been cases in which the verdicts have been split 2-1. One such 2-1 verdict, which ruled that legislation imposing term limits, without validation by a referendum, were unconstitutional, was subsequently overturned by a majority decision of the Caribbean Court of Justice.
More than mathematics is at stake. Who knows how many men in Guyana would have had their death sentences upheld by a 2-1 vote of our Court of Appeal. What happens then if the ‘no half-man’ rule is endorsed by the CCJ and is not restricted only to the no-confidence motion?
Appeals, including those contesting death sentence, have been known in the past to have been decided by a majority of a three-man panel of judges. What happens if it is held that 33 is not a majority of 65 and therefore 2 is not a majority of 3?
If the CCJ rules that 33 is not a majority of 65, what happens to all those cases in which our Courts and all other courts have made decisions with a majority of one? The CCJ decision also has implications for all odd-number legislatures, committees and Boards and the decisions they take where an absolute majority is needed.
In addition, the CCJ decision will pronounce on the power of one. The learned judges of the Court will pronounce on whether that single vote cast by Charrandass Persaud was valid and thus resulted in the fall of the government.

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