Dear Editor,
This is the legacy of Justice Claudette Singh SC CCH, the most consequential judge in the history of Guyana’s elections both at the judiciary and the administrative level of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM).
Justice Singh may not have been accorded the honour of being appointed Chief Justice of Guyana even though she was due, eminently qualified and experienced to so do. She was denied not because another was better than her.
Rather, she was denied because in presiding over the first elections petition ever filed in the history of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, she embraced the full tenets of her profession allowing Lady Justice to rule without fear or favour, breaking historical ground in our judicial system, to vitiate an election declaring Janet Jagan President in 1997.
Justice Singh in her January 2001 ruling has set judicial standards as to what free, fair and transparent elections are and should be. In 2020 she is once again setting a record. This time on credible elections, adjudicating the issue of arithmetic and corrupted processes. The end result will determine whether a corrupted process can yield credible results.
Justice Singh is once again breaking historical ground as the first female to hold the chairmanship of GECOM after being accepted as “fit and proper” defined in accordance with the laws governing said appointment. In her chairmanship of GECOM, she is once again setting precedents in facilitating the first national elections recount in the history of Guyana and therefore an administrative attempt to settle disputes outside of the framework of an elections petition.
Justice Singh has the unenviable title today of presiding over the first elections where international and domestic interference have seen massive efforts to destabilise every effort of GECOM to operate consistent with the Laws of Guyana; undermining the integrity of GECOM officials. Hers is also the distinct opportunity to expose the weaknesses and discrepancies of the entire process that require urgent address for credibility of future elections and avoidance of interference.
The detractors of Claudette Singh are many. These are the persons who were and are likely to still be aggrieved by her decision-making when not in their favour. She also falls victim to those who orchestrate, spearhead and support the misinformation campaign in our society.
The extremists who believe that it must be either their way or no way. They believe they have the right to determine how society views reality and this should be done through their jaundiced lens. They know themselves and we know who they are. Though they pretend to care about democracy all we see is more effort to cover their skullduggery.
Yours faithfully,
Lincoln Lewis
