Attorney General Basil Williams SC has moved to have the High Court strike out the application by attorney Anil Nandlall to compel Cabinet’s resignation.
Williams contends that Nandlall’s application is an abuse of process, moot, and an affront to the doctrine of stare decisis (meaning let the decision stand), or rule of precedent.
In a Fixed Date Application (FDA), filed on August 26th, 2019, Nandlall asked the High Court to issue an Order compelling Cabinet, including the President, to resign, or to give effect to their resignations, which he argues occurred automatically as a consequence of the no-confidence motion that was passed against the government by the National Assembly.
Nandlall also sought a Conservatory Order to restrain Cabinet from meeting, making decisions as, or performing the functions of Cabinet.
His application was based on the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) upholding of the December 21, 2018 vote on the motion of no-confidence.
However, in an interlocutory application filed yesterday, Williams is arguing that the matters which Nandlall is now seeking Orders for have already been determined authoritatively, and definitively by the CCJ, Guyana’s final court. At the same time, in seeking to argue that the Cabinet’s resignation was not in the absence of coercive orders to that effect from the CCJ, it also concedes that the court had expected Cabinet’s resignation.
According to his application, it is the State’s case that Nandlall, by virtue of his involvement in the ‘No confidence Appeals’, is aware of the fact that CCJ refused to make the orders he now seeks. It adds that the CCJ indicated that “notwithstanding its defeat, and the resignation of the President and Cabinet, Article 106 envisages that the tenure in office of the Cabinet, including the President, after the Government’s defeat, is on a different footing from that which existed prior to the vote of no confidence.”
In a letter, dated August 5th, 2019, President David Granger told Leader of the Opposition Bharrat Jagdeo that Cabinet would not be resigning.
In his application, Williams further contends that in the face of the CCJ’s decision, the Orders for which Nandlall has applied “…would require this Court to make Orders which the CCJ being the highest Court ruled on already.”
In her affidavit in support of Williams’ application, Deputy Solicitor-General Deborah Kumar averred that “the Court is being asked to adjudicate on an issue that the final Court the CCJ has pronounced upon and as a consequence this point is moot and clearly academic and a wanton abuse of the process of this Honourable Court”.
Speaking to Stabroek News yesterday, Nandlall said the State’s contention that his application is an abuse of process is misconceived. He said that it is his view that the CCJ, though not making a coercive order to this effect, clearly stated that a no-confidence vote triggers Article 106(6), which prescribes that Cabinet, including the President, must resign. He further stated that by not resigning following the decision, the Cabinet inclusive of the President entered the realm of constitutional breach and remain there today. It is against this backdrop, Nandlall said that his application was filed.
Nandlall’s FDA is scheduled to be heard by Chief Justice Roxane George-Wiltshire on Monday. Nandlall says he has been informed that the State’s application to strike out his action will be heard simultaneously.
