Dear Editor,
Reference is made to the missive by the learned Attorney General (AG) Basil Williams titled `It is for GECOM to resolve irregularities in observation reports’ (SN May 27). Having been publicly moved from his perch by his Coalition Leader that the recount is legitimate, Mr. Williams resurfaces but under the auspices of the Office he occupies. It is therefore unclear initially on whose behalf he speaks, as the de facto Government did not contest the elections.
The learned AG made no reference to any legal precedence or authority to support his contentions except GECOM’s Order which by now must have swallowed the Constitution and all Election Laws or Amendments pertaining to recounts. The AG or Mr. Williams as a Coalition figure no longer questions the legality of the recount, but seeks to add to this “special recount process” two new roles for GECOM that must occur as part of the recount.
Although he uses the noun “dichotomy,’’ which generally means two different things—it is a smokescreen because his partisan aim is to transform GECOM from an elections body into a court with exclusive and immediate jurisdiction to hear arguments, take testimonies, solicit and examine evidence, and otherwise conduct an audit of ballots under the umbrella of a recount.
This court or tribunal is to now be headed by the “well qualified” but retired Justice Claudette Singh as GECOM Chairperson, who will return to judicial duties and conduct elaborate evidentiary hearings because, as Mr. Williams’ colleague Joseph Harmon has claimed, there are at least 86,000 “anomalies” to be examined. The CARICOM team can pack up and go home.
Put another way, Guyana with its de facto President with limited authority having lost the people’s confidence since 2018, must continue to exist in this dangerous state for an indefinite period to accommodate an examination of death certificates and immigration records. Despite being a fiduciary officer of the state with good-faith duties towards Guyana, the AG has placed the Coalition before the country.
Specifically, he is using this Order to make GECOM a law on to itself, overriding the Constitution and parting with separation of powers, which allows for a robust Judiciary to pronounce on electoral “anomalies.” The AG has, in effect, eliminated a right to file election petitions afforded to petitioners, and a right to hear such petitions as afforded to the people or peers via the Judiciary.
Moreover, to get GECOM to do the Coalition’s bidding, the AG has resorted to English common law. He tells us: “The Chairman of GECOM would be familiar with the time hallowed common law principle that evidence is admissible once relevant irrespective of how it was obtained.”
Arguably, there is hardly anything more chilling on the electoral conscience as this statement. As such, GECOM can circumvent legal principles that protect privacy issues to get relevant evidence—its Chair can “call” on the General Register Office for births and deaths records and the Immigration Department for Immigration records and adjudicate just as “she would have done in Court between two opposing litigants”.
Interestingly, the eagerness with which the AG refers to the General Register Office and the Immigration Department exposes his use of public Office for pro-Coalition business, because it references the Coalition’s allegations that dead and migrated persons voted. He must recall also that this recount applies to more than two parties, none of which incidentally happens to be the General Register Office or the Immigration Department.
More importantly, while this AG is now comfortable accepting the word of the de facto President as an authority on legal matters (e.g., the AG’s reference to a letter by the president to the PPP on March 14, 2017 about the aforesaid “two opposing litigants”), his reference to “two opposing litigants” points to an adversarial legal system in which, generally, the “litigants” do the heavy lifting as to evidence, with a court acting merely as an umpire.
In such a Court or tribunal, the GECOM Chair cannot therefore “call” for death certificates and immigration records. Indeed, given this low common-law evidentiary standard of admissibility combined with her new superwoman powers, the GECOM Chair can simply flick her fingers and send her agents to the appropriate state offices to forcefully seize anything pursuant to this beloved GECOM’s Order for the “reconciliation of the ballots.”
It is this terrifying interpretation of English common law and what it allows for that forces one to respectfully disagree with the learned AG. English common law is meant to preserve, not undermine rule of law.
Yours faithfully,
Rakesh Rampertab
