Dear Editor,
I have found my friend Mr. Ralph Ramkarran S.C.’s recent offering in his “Conversation Tree” column in the Stabroek News’ edition of 17 March, 2019 “The Court osf Appeal can shine a legal light on the way forward’’ very intriguing.
Mr. Ramkarran is reported as positing that if the Court of Appeal gives its decision in the pending appeals before it, after 22 March [2019] it would be doing so where the Government no longer had any legal status. He goes further to say that there would be a huge gap in its decision if it does not address the absence of lawful governmental authority in Guyana. Mr. Ramkarran opines that if the Court is of the view that as a result of the Government’s failure to hold elections within the stipulated time, it is holding office illegally, the Court of Appeal should say so boldly and fearlessly.
However, I cannot help but remember Mr. Ramkarran in January 2001, when as Counsel for Mrs. Jagan in the case before Her Honour Justice Claudette Singh, in which Justice Singh vitiated the 1997 elections as having been conducted under unlawful arrangements, Mr. Ramkarran was faced with a submission by opposing Counsel that as the then Bharrat Jagdeo Government had acceded to office by an unlawful election, it was ipso facto unlawful, and therefore ought to demit office. Mr. Ramkarran had urged on the Court a submission that Her Honour had no authority to order the Government to demit office. Her Honour invited all Counsel to address her on whether or not she had such authority. Mr. Ramkarran’s submission must have found favour with Her Honour, as she concluded that she did not.
While I remark on the fact that my friend Mr. Ramkarran’s positions do not appear to be entirely consistent, I am conscious of the fact that they have occurred nearly twenty years apart, and my friend’s thinking on the subject may have ‘evolved’.
Yours faithfully,
Brynmor T.I. Pollard, S.C., O.R.
