Attorney General (AG) Basil Williams has submitted to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) that it should order government to return to the National Assembly to pass a resolution to extend the time to hold elections and if this is unsuccessful, that the President dissolve the House and fix a date for the polls.
In the court-mandated submission made on July 1 as the CCJ prepares to Friday issue orders based on its findings that the December 21, 2018 vote of no-confidence against the APNU+AFC administration was validly passed, thereby requiring elections, and that the Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) was unlawfully appointed, the government’s legal team also argued for house-to-house registration.
The team, comprising AG Williams, Senior Counsel Eamon Courtenay and Solicitor General Nigel Hawke, advanced a number of arguments as to why the court could not issue coercive orders such as setting a date for elections or that parliament be dissolved, arguing essentially that these are political matters and outside the jurisdiction of the court. The orders to be issued therefore, it was argued, should be “quite limited.”