Attorney Nigel Hughes has filed an application seeking to have Chief Election Officer Keith Lowenfield added as a party to the proceedings in which the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and the Commissioner of Police have requested the Statements of Poll (SoPs) and Statements of Recount (SoRs) from the March 2nd, 2020 general and regional elections.
Hughes, who would be representing the CEO, the applicant/intended defendant, filed his application shortly before the matter was called yesterday before acting Chief Justice Roxane George-Wiltshire SC.
He was then granted permission to file an affidavit in support of his application and to file and serve notices no later than May 19th.
Submissions in writing from all the parties are then to be filed on or before May 21st and the matter is returnable to court on May 24th for arguments on Hughes’ application.
The substantive application requesting the SoPs is being made by the Commissioner of Police and the DPP, who are listed as the Applicants.
The respondents, meanwhile, are the Attorney General, the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) and Registrar of the High Court.
Advancing their importance for the successful prosecution of their case
against those charged with various offences stemming from alleged criminal conduct over last year’s elections results, the DPP and Police Commissioner are seeking to have the SoPs and SoRs made available for the trials.
Pursuant to a court order issued by the Chief Justice in January, the statutory documents of the elections are currently lodged for safe-keeping with the Registrar of the Supreme Court.
Respondents in the two election petitions, which were filed by the main opposition APNU+AFC, had asked the Chief Justice to order GECOM to lodge the documents with the High Court.
Following the unprecedented, protracted five-month impasse—from March 2nd to August 2nd, of last year—during which a national recount of all ballots was conducted, the results showed that it was the PPP/C which had won the general elections with 233,336 votes over the coalition’s 217,920 votes.
Subsequent to the announcement, Lowenfield, Deputy Chief Election Officer Roxanne Myers, Region Four Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo, PNCR chairwoman Volda Lawrence, APNU+AFC activist Carol Joseph and a number of other GECOM staff were slapped with a barrage of fraud-related charges connected with the elections.
Those charges are still pending before the Magistrate’s Court, and have formed the basis of the request by the DPP and Police Commissioner for the SoPs and SoRs which they say are pivotal to proving their cases against the defendants.
In their fixed date application (FDA) to the High Court, DPP Shalimar Ali-Hack and Commissioner of Police (ag) Nigel Hoppie want the court’s Registrar Suanna Lovell, to be ordered to make the SoPs in her possession available for the Magistrate’s Court trial.
