Justice Franklyn Holder is this afternoon expected to rule on whether he has jurisdiction to hear a challenge by Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo to the legality of a March 13th declaration of results for Electoral District Four (Region Four), made by Returning Officer (RO) Clairmont Mingo.
The lawyer for the Guyana Elections Commission (CEO) Chief Election Officer Keith Lowenfield had challenged whether the court had jurisdiction to hear the matter.
When the matter was called yesterday afternoon, hours after a Full Court had granted a stay against Justice Holder hearing another matter—an application by APNU+AFC candidate Ulita Grace Moore to halt a recount of ballots cast at the March 2 polls—Jagdeo’s lawyer, Senior Counsel Douglas Mendes, said that he believed the stay also impacted his case.
However, Senior Counsel Neil Boston, who represents Lowenfield, submitted that the two matters do not overlap since they are mutually exclusive and it was only because of a matter of convenience that they were taken together.
Justice Holder concurred and informed Mendes, who joined in via video link, that the stay granted yesterday morning does not impact the current matter as one has to do with the recount process and the other with the validity of the declaration and it stopped there.
Mendes continued to argue, while pointing out that should the judge proceed with the said matter then he would be acting contrary to a stay granted by the Full Court.
The judge enquired whether Mendes had any intention to withdraw the current matter and he responded in the negative, further arguing that some of the issues that the Judge will have to consider in this matter are the same that will have to be considered in Moore’s matter.
Justice Holder informed that he will be giving his decision this afternoon and that Mendes is then free to take it wherever he sees fit after. He is expected to give his decision at 2.30 this afternoon.
Both Justice Holder and his clerk were wearing masks as a precaution against the coronavirus and at one point attorney-at-law Anil Nandlall, who appeared with Mendes for Jagdeo, indicated that they had a difficulty hearing the judge because of the mask.
“Well I am not taking it off,” the judge responded and he then enquired from Mendes if he was hearing him and Mendes said he was loud and clear. “Some people right here are saying that they are not hearing me,” the Judge responded.
Last week Friday in the same matter Justice Holder rejected the request made by Jagdeo to have the Statements of Poll (SOPs) for Region Four disclosed to the court. The judge said at the time that the proper forum would be an elections petition.
The opposition PPP/C’s position has been that Mingo did not, as required by law, use the SOPs to tabulate the results he eventually declared.
Nandlall had contended that the SOPs ought to be disclosed in the interest of transparency so that they could be thoroughly scrutinised against the figures Mingo is purported to have declared as being an accurate representation of the votes cast for District Four.
Justice Holder on Friday, however, said that in accordance with the National Assembly Validity of Elections Act, all questions relating to the elections and the validity of same, ought to be dealt with by an elections petition. The judge had said that the crux of Jagdeo’s application calls for an enquiry into the validity of the elections itself.
