Saying that he believes that the Court of Appeal was wrong in its pronouncement on what constituted a majority in last December’s vote on a no-confidence motion against the government, attorney and accountant Christopher Ram yesterday said he has instructed that his attorney appeal the decision at the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).
“…[T]he courts in my view have made a grave error of unquestioning acceptance of decisions and principles from afar with no regard that, at best, can be of no more than persuasive value. In the process, yesterday’s decision marked a turning point in Guyana’s jurisprudence, introducing a harmful level of uncertainty into constitutional and statutory interpretation in our courts,” Ram said in a statement, which came a day after the Appellate Court, in a split decision, overturned an earlier ruling that the motion was validly passed on a vote of 33 to 32 elected members of the National Assembly.
Chancellor of the Judiciary (ag) Yonette Cummings-Edwards and appellate judge Dawn Gregory both agreed that 34 votes were required to guarantee the motion’s successful passage, while appellate judge Rishi Persaud dissented and endorsed Chief Justice Roxane George-Wiltshire’s ruling in the lower court.
Ram was one of the respondents in the appeals brought by government after the Chief Justice found on an application in his name that the APNU+AFC Cabinet, including the president, stood resigned upon the passage of the PPP/C-sponsored motion on December 21st.
In his statement yesterday, Ram noted that the single most important of the Chief Justice’s declarations had been that 33 is a majority of the 65-member National Assembly and he said that principle, which was embedded in the 1966 Independence Constitu-tion, had been accepted and applied by the legislature in every decision in the National Assembly since then.
“The Court of Appeal upheld every one of the decisions by the Chief Justice while overturning her on what many saw as the basic, simple and commonsense issue of the majority. For the respondents, succeeding on the other issues was no more than a pyrrhic victory. To say that the decision of the Court of Appeal was a surprise would be the understatement of the century. In my view, it was an exercise in judicial law making in clear violation of the Court’s power, function and duty to interpret the Constitution,” he argued.
Dr Alexis, a Grenadian Queen’s Counsel, appearing on behalf of the government, had submitted during oral arguments earlier this month that the incorrect formula had been utilised for calculating the votes to validate the passage of the motion. He had reasoned that in Guyana’s 65-member National Assembly, half would result in a fraction of 32.5. He said if it is to be rounded to the next whole number, that figure will be 33 and, in accordance with the practice and the application of the meaning of majority, one has to be added to calculate a majority.
Ram said that it took some effort to hear the judges say how attracted they were to the arguments of Dr. Alexis that a vote of no confidence is so important that it required a majority not contemplated by the Constitution.
“Interestingly, if the same principle is applied to a Vote of Confidence brought by the Government in a 33-32 National Assembly, the motion would fail because it did not receive thirty-four votes! The Court must also be aware that had Charrandass Persaud not cast an adverse vote, 33 would have been accepted as a majority! And finally on this point, it is worth reminding that the 2019 Budget was not passed by a majority of 34 and it is unlikely that anyone would argue that a Budget is not special,” he added.
The statement said while each of the judges emphasised that they would expand on their opinion in their written judgments to follow, the majority was not shy in giving prominence to the submission by Dr. Alexis and cases cited by attorney Roysdale Forde, the lawyer for Joseph Harmon, notwithstanding the rebuttals by attorney Anil Nandlall for the Leader of the Opposition Bharrat Jagdeo.
While Jagdeo said his party would respect the ruling of the court, both he and Nandlall have also indicated plans to appeal to the CCJ.
