Nandlall loses bid to stop challenge to President’s decision to suspend PSC

Mar 10, 2022 News

Kaieteur News – The constitutional case filed by Chairman of the Police Service Commission (PSC), Paul Slowe is expected to continue as Justice Gino Persaud threw out an application by Attorney General (AG) Anil Nandlall SC to have the case dismissed.

Former PSC chair, Paul Slowe.

Nandlall had asked the court to dismiss the PSC‘s application that was initially brought against President Irfaan Ali over the suspension of the commission. He premised his application on the fact that the life of the commission had expired shortly after the case was filed. However, in his ruling, Justice Persaud said it was not logical or fair to throw out the substantive case because the life of the commission had ended. “I’m therefore of the view that the former Chairman, Paul Slowe, who swore to the Affidavit in Support of the FDA has a sufficient interest since he is directly affected together with the locus standi to continue the proceedings and the Court can properly under its inherent jurisdiction order that he be substituted as the applicant in the place and stead of the Police Service Commission to facilitate the just and effective resolution of the matters in dispute before the Court,” Justice Persaud said of his reason to dismiss the application.
Further, the judge ordered no costs since the matter is in the public interest but said that Slowe must now be substituted for the PSC as the applicant since no Commission is in place. “In the circumstances, he explained, it is ordered that Paul Slowe be substituted in the place and stead of the Police Service Commission as the applicant…,” the judge ordered.
The judge also ordered that the AG shall file an affidavit in defence by 6 April, 2022 with permission to the substituted applicant to file an affidavit in reply, if necessary, by 20 April. The parties shall simultaneously file, serve and email written submissions by 4 May. A date shall be fixed for oral addresses. Nandlall had asked the High Court to discontinue or strike out the case filed against the State by the now defunct PSC.

Attorney General, Anil Nandlall SC.

The PSC had moved to the court to challenge President Ali’s suspension of its members after allegations of fraud and sexual assault surfaced against some of its members. Ali suspended the members of the Commission by way of letters dated June 15, 2021. By July 21, last, the PSC filed a court case challenging the President’s suspension, which it argued was done unlawfully.
The case has been ongoing with the AG petitioning the Court to have the name of the President removed from the list of respondents in the matter. The Court later granted Nandlall’s request.
The AG subsequently sought to have the PSC‘s application struck out on the grounds that the life of the PSC expired on the 8th August, 2021. In his submission before the Court, the Attorney General had outlined his contention that since there is no Commission, there can be no lawful subsistence of any legal proceedings on its behalf.
The AG had stressed inter alia, since the entire PSC became vacant, it cannot lawfully continue to maintain the legal proceedings. To buttress his argument, Nandlall explained that the PSC, like the other Service Commissions, can only act through and by virtue of their constituent members. “This much is made excruciatingly plain when one examines the powers and procedures of Commissions as are outlined in Article 226 of the Constitution,” he adding that . In light of the foregoing, the continuance of these proceedings in the absence of authority would be so fundamental a flaw as to make the proceedings a nullity. “…We respectfully submit that these proceedings cannot be maintained. The expiration of the life of the Commission naturally terminated the agency relationship, which previously existed between the Commission and [their lawyers]…. In the circumstances, we respectfully pray that this Honourable Court would grant an Order striking out Fixed Date Application…” Nandlall had said in his application.
Meanwhile, Nandlall said being in disagreement with the decision of Justice Persaud he has filed a Notice of Appeal to the Full Court of the High Court of Guyana seeking to appeal the decision of the Learned Trial Judge. Further, he said given that the Learned Trial Judge’s decision paves the way for the substantive issues raised in the PSC’s Fixed Date Application to proceed, he will, in short order, also be filing a Notice of Application seeking to stay the Fixed Date Application in the High Court.