Nandlall says magistrates not treating elections fraud cases seriously

Aug 19, 2022 News

Kaieteur News – Attorney General (AG) and Minister and Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall, SC has expressed concerns over what he described as the slow pace in the prosecution of the elections fraud cases.

Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall, SC

Back in 2020, over 30 fraud-related charges were brought against, former Chief Elections Officer (CEO) of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Keith Lowenfield, Deputy Chief Elections Officer (DCEO), Roxanne Myers, former Region Four Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo, and Opposition Member of Parliament, Volda Lawrence.

The other defendants that were charge include, A Partnership for National Unity and Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) activist, Carol Smith-Joseph, GECOM’s Information Technology Officer, Enrique Livan, and GECOM Clerks, Michelle Miller, Sheffern February and Denise Bab-Cummings.

Some of the charges the defendants face are, misconduct in public office, conspiracy to commit fraud, forging a document and forgery – all in relation to their attempt to allegedly rig the March 2020 General and Regional elections.

Owed to several requests for an update on the elections fraud cases – on Tuesday night during his weekly show ‘Issues in the news’ the Attorney General disclosed that he has made strong representation to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Shalimar Ali-Hack, SC, and stated that he has expressed his concern about the pace at which the cases are being dealt with in the Magistrate’s Court.

To this end he added, “I have requested of the DPP most respectfully to ensure that the appropriate representations are made to ensure that greater alacrity is brought to these matters and that they are treated with the type of seriousness that they deserve.”

The Attorney General shared that from conversations with the DPP, it was reported to him that “the Magistrates within the system are not proceeding with the matter with the seriousness and expediency in which they should having regards to the importance of the matter and having regard to the length of time the matters are pending before them.”

Nandlall noted too that in some instances Magistrates have made applications to recuse themselves– while others are, “simply not determining whether the cases should be tried summarily meaning in the Magistrates Court or should be taken indictable before the judge and jury.”

He pointed out that one Magistrate have made the decision for the matters to be tried before a judge and jury but noted that the Magistrate’s decision is being appealed.

In closing Nandlall stated that as the Attorney General, he is duty-bound to express certain views and highlighted that he does not wish for his statement to be twisted or interpreted to mean that he is being unduly critical to any Magistrate.

Kaieteur News had reported that the prosecution for the electoral fraud case had made two applications to the court seeking to have all the matters consolidated and to make amendments to the charges.

On July 15, when the matter was called before Chief Magistrate Ann McLennan, the prosecution led by Attorney-at-Law Darshan Ramdhani, QC and includes Glenn Hanoman, Mark Conway, Ganesh Hira, Arudranauth Gossai, and George Thomas, made the two applications to the court. The State’s team asked the court to consolidate the matters to have the elections fraud cases tried before one magistrate instead of three.

In addition to the Chief Magistrate, some of the matters were assigned to Principal Magistrate Sherdel Isaacs-Marcus and Senior Magistrate Leron Daly. As it relates to the second application, the prosecution wants to make some amendments to the current charges that were brought against the defendants. Based on the two applications that were made to the court, Chief Magistrate McLennan adjourned the matter to October 6, 2022, when she is expected to rule on the applications in relation to making amendment to the charges. Notably, no date has been set for the Magistrate to rule on the application seeking to consolidate the matters

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