Court of Appeal to move ahead with early hearing of election petition case

Oct 04, 2022 News

Kaieteur News – The Guyana Court of Appeal has taken a decision to hear the appeal over the dismissed of Elections Petition filed on behalf of the Opposition A Partnership for National Unity+Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC).

The decision to move forward with the petition came on Monday after Chancellor of the Judiciary, Yonette Cummings-Edwards, and Justices of Appeal Dawn Gregory and Rishi Persaud considered an application to urgently hear the appeal of the elections petition which was thrown out by Chief Justice, Roxane George-Wiltshire at the High Court 19 months ago.

The ruling was made despite objections by Queens Counsel, Douglas Mendes, for the People’s Progressive Party Civic’s (PPP/C). Mendes made the observation that Lawyers for the appellants took 19 months before taking steps to have the hearing fast-tracked. Senior Counsel, Roysdale Forde described Mr. Mendes’ reasoning as “fallacious” as he sought to rely on “rules that do not exist” in relation to the Court of Appeal. “There is no specific rule which exists under the Court of Appeal which says Mr. Bostwick and Ms. Thorne failed to comply with,” he said.

Attorney-at-Law, Roysdale Forde, SC

Mr. Forde said the fault lies with the system as he and his clients have not received the full decision. In applying for a speedy hearing of

Attorney-at-Law, Douglas Mendes, SC

the appeal, Mr Forde- on behalf of the applicants, Heston Bostwick and Claudette Thorne, told the court that 19 months after the decision, there was only a draft transcript of the Chief Justice’s decision. “We would have suffered a substantial prejudice by the failure to have the full decision made and laid over to the court as well as for the notice of appeal and the record of appeal to be properly laid over.”

As such, Justice Cummings-Edwards said “a party or an applicant should not be turned away from the seat of justice given the nature of this matter and, therefore, in the interest of justice we will grant the application, as filed or sought by Mr. Forde.”

The Guyana Court of Appeal has set November 1, 2022, for the status of the records including the full judgment by Chief Justice Roxane George-Wiltshire. The court also gave Mr. Forde seven days from October 3 to serve the notice of appeal on the other parties. Since the Chief Justice (CJ) delivered her ruling in April of last year, the appellants have been calling for their appeal to be heard.

Thorne and Bostwick said that their lawyer, Forde, wrote the Registrar of the Appellate Court earlier this year requesting that given its national importance, their appeal be urgently heard. Last April, the Coalition filed a notice of appeal against the Chief Justice’s decision to dismiss the second elections petition case. The appellants raised issue claiming that it is ‘a failure of the judicial system’ to have an appeal pending for over a year.

Both, Thorne and Bostwick had argued that Section 22 of the Election Laws (Amendment) Act (ELA) and Order #60 of 2020, otherwise known as ‘the Recount Order’, are unconstitutional, and thus resulted in breaches and violations by GECOM in its conduct of the elections. As such, the Lawyers contend in their appeal, among other things, that the trial Judge erred in law when she ruled that, “Section 22 of the Elections Law (Amendment) Act 2000 and Order 60 made thereunder were not in violation of the Constitution of Guyana…”

In their request for the Court of Appeal to set aside the CJ’s ruling , the Lawyers noted that Justice George-Wiltshire, SC erred in law when she ruled that the said Order 60 was intra vires of the said Constitution of Guyana by virtue of conferment of powers under Article 162 (1) (b) and said Section 22 [of the ELA]…”

“The Learned Judge erred in law when she ruled that the Appellants did not produce evidence in the said Petition, in that, being a Petition which claimed that the said March 2 Elections was not lawfully conducted, there was no need for production of any evidence except what was presented, namely, the Declarations as per Regional Returning Officers’ 1 to 10 and the Recount,” the appeal document also pointed out. Further, it noted that the judge erred in law when she ordered that the Statements of Poll (SoPs) and Statements of Recount (SoRs) from the March 2020 General and Regional Elections remain in the custody of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Judicature until all the cases have been completed.

The Chief Justice (CJ) had also previously dismissed Petition #99 filed on behalf of Monica Thomas and Brenan Nurse in January 2021, for non-compliance in relation to the effecting of service on former President David Granger. The petitioners had served Granger with the documents too late.