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Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Basil Williams SC on Monday withdrew two summonses which he had pending before the Guyana Court of Appeal in relation to the Judicial Review Act (JRA).
The first pertained to an appeal he had filed after being denied the stay of an order compelling him to operationalize the JRA.
In his second summons, he had been hoping that the court would urgently hear the substantive appeal which he had filed to the ruling delivered by acting Chief Justice Roxane George SC, ordering him to bring the JRA into operation.
Though initially flouting the Chief Justice’s ruling of May 28th ordering him to bring the Act into force no later than July 31st of this year, Williams eventually complied on August 27, 2018 bringing the order into effect retroactively from July 31st.
Meanwhile, the Attorney General’s (AG) substantive appeal to Justice George’s appeal is still pending before the court. A date is yet to be fixed for the matter to be heard.
Williams’ predecessor under the former PPP government, Anil Nandlall who had taken him to court for not bringing the Act into force has said that the AG continues to waste time in such matters which ends in actions just being withdrawn.
“He continues to waste precious judicial time and taxpayer’s money on futile applications which should never have been filed in the first place,” Nandlall said in comments to this newspaper.
He was not at Monday’s hearing.
According to the former AG the court would have set aside time to hear the withdrawal applications which he said could have otherwise been more valuably spent hearing the appeals of other citizens who have cases pending for years.
He questioned also the reason behind his predecessor not withdrawing the substantive appeal to Justice George’s ruling which he said is still languishing in the system. Nandlall said with the Act having been brought into force and litigation having commenced under it, “It is legally impossible for the Chief Justice’s decision to be reversed.”
“That much is clear,” he stressed.
Against this background, Nandlall said it would continue to be a waste of time since a date will still have to be fixed for that appeal to be heard, which the Attorney General in the final analysis will also have to withdraw.
He said that the Chief Justice’s ruling cannot be reversed while noting that the Act itself can only be repealed by Parliament, again stressing that the appeal “will certainly be futile.” tha tim
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