by Nicole Telford- It has been over one year since all documents regarding the 2020 Elections Petition were submitted to the Guyana Court of Appeal, and yet, no resolution on the matter has been forthcoming.
In an interview with Village Voice News, senior counsel Roysdale Forde, APNU/AFC’s Opposition Parliamentarian with responsibility for Legal Affairs, expressed that he views the slothfulness of the Court of Appeal on the matter as a deliberate attempt by the Guyana Government to stifle the inevitable outcome of the Elections Petition.
The senior counsel said, “I believe the principal factor that hampers the court’s decision is the failure of the Government of Guyana to provide the court with the necessary resources needed; the court has two Justices and the acting Chancellor when a full complement should be five Justices under the constitution and by law.” The lawyer added that “the court is also affected by the lack of research assistants and accompanying staff to ensure the system functions efficiently.” The Court of Appeal is operating under the bare minimum requirements, Forde offered.
The Court of Appeal is swamped with hundreds of cases yearly, which affects its ability to pronounce on cases expeditiously, but the senior counsel insists that “it’s an extremely long period of time to await such an important decision for the country; elections petitions ought to be heard quickly and determined expeditiously.” The Senior Counsel reiterated that “all submissions by lawyers representing each side were done in March of 2022, but it’s the end of August 2023, and the silence from the court borders on strange given the nature of the case before the court.”
The Election Petition filed challenges the validity of Order 60 and the constitutionality of Section 22 of the Election Laws Amendment Act, challenging the creation of Order 60, which was used to conduct the recount of Guyana’s 2020 Election results.
Senior Counsel Roysdale Forde said, “we are saying that the Guyana Elections Commission did not properly exercise its functions under these provisions and that the constitution did not permit GECOM to exercise law-making powers.” The senior counsel said that, in effect, what the Guyana Elections Commission did was to create a law under which the elections would have been conducted and declared. The Senior Counsel insists GECOM does not possess that power.
