Chief Election Officer Keith Lowenfield has discontinued his legal challenge to bar government-nominated members of the Guyana Elections Com-mission (GECOM) from voting on a motion to dismiss him.
When the case was called yesterday for ruling by Justice Jo-Ann Barlow, Lowenfield’s attorney, Nigel Hughes, said that the matter is no longer being pursued as “circumstances have overtaken” it, in an apparent reference to an amendment of the motion to cater for the termination of his services. Hughes informed that given the new developments, he had taken steps to file a notice of discontinuance on Lowenfield. The lawyer said, too, that an injunction that Lowenfield was also seeking against the Commission was also no longer being pursued.
Granting permission to discontinue the proceedings and discharging the interim injunction previously imposed against the Commission, Justice Barlow declared the matter ended. The developments now clear the way for GECOM to proceed with deliberations on the termination of Lowenfield’s service.
Justice Barlow had set yesterday to rule on Lowenfield’s substantive application, by which he sought to bar government-nominated members of GECOM Sase Gunraj and Bibi Shadick from voting on the motion seeking to dismiss him.
The judge had indicated that she was also going to rule on whether Lowenfield would have been granted injunctive relief prohibiting GECOM from hearing the motion.
In his application, the CEO noted that his contract of employment provides for two bases for termination of services–either via a three-month notice or without notice for “gross misconduct” providing that he would be given written notice setting out clearly the reason for termination and giving the CEO an opportunity to respond.
Lowenfield’s contention has been not whether the Commission can terminate his services—as he says it has the power to so do—but rather the Commission’s intention of summarily dismissing him in breach of his contract and in a manner which he said did not lend itself to a fair hearing, given that Gunraj and Shadick had filed complaints against him that served as the basis for the dismissal motion. Lowenfield advanced that the two would be biased and that he would be denied the right to a fair hearing.
At a hearing last Thursday, however, counsel for the Commission, Kim Kyte-Thomas, sought to allay what she said were the fears of the CEO, and had told the court that the Commission was no longer proceeding with summary dismissal.
In fact, she said that through an amended motion, the Commission was pursuing termination with notice.
On July 27, motions for the dismissal of Lowenfield, Deputy Chief Election Officer Roxanne Myers and District Four Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo were amended to allow for the termination of their contracts.
The motions, first tabled on June 1, were amended to allow for termination of contracts in lieu of dismissal.
Opposition-nominated Commissioner Vincent Alexander had, however, contended that the amendments were a means of avoiding fair-hearing, issues he had raised.
“They are backing off…they probably can’t confront my issues about a fair hearing and all that so they are attempting to go into the normal termination arrangement,” he had told this newspaper.
