With the second of its appeals still pending more than a year after both its petitions challenging the March 2nd, 2020 polls were thrown out, the Opposition APNU+AFC has been granted Monday October 3rd, 2022 to be heard on a Motion it has filed requesting the swift hearing of that outstanding appeal.
The Guyana Court of Appeal set the date for the hearing of the Motion which was filed by Senior Counsel Roysdale Forde, who represents appellants Claudette Thorne and Heston Bostwick, in whose name that petition was filed.
Noting in its Motion of August 30th, 2022 that it had filed its appeal since May 31st of last year, and that the Chief Justice had delivered her ruling in April of last year, the appellants are calling for their appeal to be heard.
They say that it is a “failure of the judicial system, as well as a breach of the democratic principles set out in the Constitution” to have an appeal pending whilst 16 months would have elapsed in an action which challenges the results of an Election and what they say is the “installation of a patently illegitimate Government.”
Thorne and Bostwick said that their lawyer wrote the Registrar of the appellate court earlier this year—in March— requesting that given its national importance, their appeal be urgently heard.
They say that their lawyer was, however, informed that this was not possible as the Registry was not yet in possession of the Chief Justice’s written ruling.
When asked, Forde confirmed with this newspaper yesterday that the written ruling is still to be made available.
Thorne and Bostwick are contending that their right of appeal has been rendered nugatory and futile by the failure to obtain the Chief Justice’s full written ruling, and that the delay thus far has been “inordinate.”
This, they argue, results in a breach of their constitutional right to a fair hearing within a reasonable time—but more—that a matter of “the greatest national importance…the legitimacy of the Government,” remains unresolved.
The appellants are adamant that that the Elections of March 2nd, 2020, were unlawfully held. Their petition which was dismissed, sought to invalidate the national recount of ballots cast following the contentious announcement of those polls. Among other things, Chief Justice (ag) Roxane George SC ruled that Section 22 of the Elections Law (Amendment) Act 2000 and Order 60 made thereunder by which the recount was facilitated, were not in violation of the Constitution.
It was the contention of the petitioners, that Order 60 was “bad” in law because it was brought into force by an unlawful piece of legislation—Section 22 of the ELAA.
They wanted the court to determine among other things, questions regarding whether the elections had been lawfully conducted or whether the results had been, or may have been affected by any unlawful act or omission and in consequence thereof, whether the seats in the National Assembly had been lawfully allocated.
Dissatisfied with the ruling, they lodged an appeal before the Court of Appeal.
The Opposition had filed two petitions challenging the results. In January of last year, Justice George dismissed the first of those petitions after finding that the Party’s presidential candidate David Granger was not served on time.
Petitioners Monica Thomas and Brennan Nurse subsequently appealed to the local appellate court which ruled that it had jurisdiction to hear the challenge.
Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo and the AG have, however, challenged the decision of the local appeal court giving itself jurisdiction to hear the appeal.
Their contention before the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) is that having not been determined on its merits, the petition cannot be appealed.
That matter is currently awaiting ruling before the Trinidad-based CCJ.
One of the Justices of the superior final appellate court for Guyana had remarked at the hearing of that matter two months ago, that there seemed to be an eagerness to “punish” for a few days delay in service in one petition, while noting that two years on from the elections, the other of the two petitions “is still somewhere.”
The petition to which the Judge made reference is that filed by Thorne and Bostwick.
