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Don’t waste Court’s precious time, resources on issues already decided – CJ tells lawyers
By Kemol King
Chief Justice (CJ) Roxane George-Wiltshire, in handing down her ruling on the Misenga Jones case yesterday, was adamant that persons cannot be allowed to waste the time and resources of the Court to revisit issues already sufficiently adjudicated.
Chief Justice Roxane George-Wiltshire
“There must be finality to judicial decisions,” The CJ said, “Myriad persons cannot be permitted to engage the court with multiple applications regarding the same issue which has been decided, and shield behind the claim that they were not a party to the previous proceedings. To so permit would be to waste precious judicial time and resources. In short order – this cannot be allowed.”
The Chief Justice yesterday dismissed Jones’ application to invalidate the national recount, given that the reliefs sought were already decided in previous litigation by the Court of Appeal and the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).
Despite those details in her adjudication yesterday, Roysdale Forde, attorney for the applicant announced, following the ruling, that they will seek to appeal the High Court’s ruling shortly. The APNU+AFC coalition’s campaign manager, Joseph Harmon, also indicated in a release that the party will engage the matter at the Appeal Court.
Litigation on this matter has substantially contributed to the protraction of Guyana’s 2020 electoral process for four and a half months.
Key grounds in which the CJ rooted her decisions were the principles of stare decisis and res judicata. The first principle requires a Court to premise its litigation on precedents, and the latter dictates that if a matter has been adjudicated by a competent court, it cannot be re-litigated.
Expounding on res judicata, the Chief Justice quoted the CCJ in Garraway v Williams [2011] CCJ 12 (AJ), in which the Court stated “As is well known, the principle of res judicata is intended to give finality to judicial decisions. Literally, the term means that a matter has already been finally settled by judicial decision and is not subject to further appeal.”
George-Wiltshire determined that the Jones case constituted public interest litigation, which should be considered to be in rem, “that is leading to a determination of ‘the status of a person or thing or the disposition of a thing, as distinct from a particular interest in it of a party to the litigation.’
In this case, the Chief Elections Officer (CEO), Keith Lowenfield, the judge said, was a party to the Ulita Moore case, which challenged the legality of the recount, and the Irfaan Ali appeal to the CCJ, which challenged the Appeal Court’s unlawful interpretation of Article 177 (2) of the Constitution of Guyana. Noting this, the Chief Justice said that the CEO is bound by the decisions in the Moore and Ali cases, whether or not he participated in the proceedings.
The Justice noted a precedent in one of her rulings, in which she applied the principle of issue estoppel, a sub-principle of res judicata, where a particular issue that was judicially determined in previous litigation between the parties has been raised again under a different cause. The Chief Justice pointed to her adjudication in Ram v Chief Election Officer et al FDA 1151/2019, in which she gave an interpretation of the CCJ decision in the consolidated appeals of Ram v AG & Ors (No. GYCV2019/009), Jagdeo v AG & Ors (No. GYCV2019/010) and Persaud v Reid & Ors (No. GYCV2019/011).
She stated “I applied the principle of issue estoppel in holding that the CCJ did not make an order that referred to, or included a date or period for the holding of elections following the successful no confidence motion. As such, apart from applying the doctrine of stare decisis, I concluded that res judicata applied to the claim by Mr. Ram and he was bound by the decision of the CCJ in this regard.”
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