Latest update December 16th, 2024 9:00 AM
CCJ rejects application by Barbados-based lawyer to appoint Speaker as ‘Interim President’
Noting that the hearing of the consolidated appeals stemming from the passage of the No-Confidence Motion have been heard and determined, the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) yesterday rejected an application by Attorney-at-Law Lalu Hanuman, a Barbados-based Guyanese citizen, to appoint Speaker of the National Assembly Dr. Barton Scotland as ‘Interim President’.
Responding to Hanuman’s application via email, the CCJ’s Registry Supervisor said, “Please be advised that the consolidated appeals referred to at caption are now complete, the judgment of the Court having been delivered on the 18th day of June 2019. It is therefore too late for anyone to join as amicus curiae, even if a proper application for so doing had been made.”
In the amicus curiae submission, Hanuman, who is also Chairperson of the Barbados Bar Association’s Human Rights Committee, held that there is currently no constitutional President, no constitutional Leader of the Opposition as well as no constitutional National Assembly in Guyana as the CCJ affirmed the passage of the No-Confidence Motion against government.
Against this backdrop, the lawyer called on the Regional Court to move Guyana back into constitutionality. The best way to do this, he submitted, was for the CCJ to adopt a proactive stance and to order that Dr. Scotland be appointed as ‘Interim President’, in the capacity as Caretaker Government, and for him to appoint an equal number of Ministers from both sides of the last National Assembly.
He said, … “And for the said Ministers to serve pending the holding of a General Election [regional and national], and for the “Interim President” to then appoint a person from the eighteen names previously submitted by the last Leader of the Opposition [Bharrat Jagdeo] as GECOM Chairperson. The new GECOM Chairperson will then advise the “Interim President” as to the date of elections.”
He is of the belief that having Dr. Scotland as ‘Interim President’ with a team of multi-party Ministers will help introduce bipartisanship into this constitutional crisis, and be a more legitimate approach than allowing the former President [David Granger] to remain in office over three months after the expiry of his constitutional mandate.
According to Hanuman, the constitutional life of the National Assembly has not been extended in accordance with Article 106 (7) of the Constitution, and therefore, there is no constitutional President nor a constitutional Leader of the Opposition and no constitutional mechanism that can be followed to appoint a Chairperson of GECOM, given that his/her appointment is to be made from a list supplied to the President by the Leader of the Opposition.
“As the Caribbean Court of Justice held in Attorney General of Guyana v Cedric Richardson, “The passage of time cannot make valid that which was void ab initio”. Only a vote to extend the three month deadline within the constitutional three month window could constitutionally extend the life of the National Assembly; the Presidential term; and the tenure of the Leader of the Opposition,” the lawyer said in his submission.
As it is, Hanuman held that the Presidential term and the tenure of the Leader of the Opposition were terminated by effluxion on March 21—three months after the No-Confidence Motion was passed in the National Assembly and according to him, it is trite law that a nullity cannot be revived.
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