Court can’t compel GECOM to hold polls by specific date

Anil Nandlall

Aside from the Constitution explicitly requiring that elections be held within three months of government’s collapse on the passage of a no-confidence motion, Senior Counsel Stanley Marcus says in the same vein, the supreme law also caters for that time to be extended.

Marcus was at the time presenting arguments before acting Chief Justice Roxane George-Wiltshire SC, on behalf of the Guy-ana Elections Commission (GECOM), whose current house-to-house registration exercise is being challenged by chartered accountant Christopher Ram.    

At the hearing yesterday afternoon, Marcus advanced that one could not approach the court for an order compelling GECOM to execute elections by a certain time, as it is the President alone, in any event, who would have to announce a date for elections.