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There are rules and laws governing elections that ought not to be violated and those who seek to do so the law must take its course and deliver justice. Only by accepting these principles can we ensure the integrity of our elections and the true will of the people. Any found culpable violating the election laws must be dealt with condignly. This goes for every election worker and those who aid and abet the violations.
Efforts at every level of the judiciary to deny hearing of Election Petition No. 99 has done this nation a grave disservice. Some in our society are comfortable crusading around the world, accusing persons of rigging elections, but when the opportunity is given for the evidence to unfold in a court of law they have moved to ensure the world does not hear the truth.
There is every reason to believe the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) is afraid to subject themselves to scrutiny for the 2020 Elections. Their record over the years of globe-trotting and accusing others of rigging elections, even when Sam Hinds sat in the National Assembly occupying a seat won by the Alliance for Change, is an image they want to protect. These PPP is not opposed to benefitting from rigged elections as seen with Hinds’ wrongly awarded a seat through the Guyana Elections Commission’s (GECOM) manipulation.
The PPP also knows the 2020 Elections were grossly compromised but they will fight tooth and nail not to have the truth exposed because they don’t stand to benefit from the truth.
The 2020 Elections were manipulated with the support of GECOM and foreign forces to deliver a government not reflective of the true will of the people but to put in place a regime likely to accommodate trampling Guyana’s sovereignty for external economic interest. GECOM and members of the court facilitated this. They failed Guyana.
The challenge to the dismissal of Petition No. 99 on the ground that David Granger failed to sign his affidavit within the stipulated time frame cannot be countenanced. An issue as serious as the petition should not have been hampered by a minute procedural mishap.
The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) ruled both in 2020 and 2022 the Guyana Appeal Court cannot hear election matters dismissed by the High Court. But the CCJ in its majority decision in 2022 refused to address which is the appropriate court to hear the matter. In effect what they did is throw back the matter to us with no direction as to what must be the next course of action, content to leave the matter languishing in an atmosphere of nowhere. This confirms their complicity in undermining the nation’s sovereignty, the people’s quest for justice, and the world knowing what occurred with those ballot boxes.
We need to take note Article 163 (3) of the Constitution of Guyana explicitly states election matters are outside of the remit of the CCJ. Yet they found ways to impose themselves into issues they had no authority to get involved in.
The CCJ’s 2020 decision has been questioned in many parts of the region. Questions were also raised by legal luminaries as to whether it makes sense for countries in CARICOM to use the CCJ as their court of last resort. No doubt similar conversations will follow from their decision last week.
This present batch of Justices on the CCJ have raised serious questions about their motive and reinforcing concerns that they are not devoid of being influenced for the wrong reason or in the wrong direction. The CCJ’s actions on Guyana’s elections are deserving of inquiry because the men and women in robes presenting sitting on the bench have disrobed the integrity of the Court.
