No meeting between gov’t, opposition yet on CCJ rulings

-parties expected to deliver separate submissions to court today

Government and the opposition are expected to deliver written submissions to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) today but to date, are yet to meet to discuss any of their individual proposals.

Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo last evening told Stabroek News that there has been no meeting over the weekend and his team was at the time preparing its submissions for the court.

“No we have not [met]. We are just working on the large details…just came off the phone with the lawyers in Trinidad. We have been preparing our submissions,” Jagdeo said.

Calls to Attorney General Basil Williams and Minister of State Joseph Harmon were not answered.

The CCJ had, on the 24th of June, invited submissions from all the parties in relation to the consequential orders it should issue following its decision upholding the December 21, 2018 motion of no-confidence against the APNU+AFC government and its ruling that the appointment of Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) retired Justice James Patterson was unconstitutional.

President of the Court, Justice Adrian Saunders, had told both sides that written submissions must be provided by July 1st and the court will make a decision on the consequential orders by July 12th. This decision came after the court had expressed the hope that the two parties would have met and discussed what ought to be the way forward by June 24th but this did not occur.

At the June 24th hearing, the oral submissions from the two sides varied greatly in what they expected the court to issue in terms of consequential orders.

At several points, Justice Saunders expressed his exasperation with the dilatory manner in which Guyana’s leaders and their counsel have approached the matter of arriving at a consensual decision on these important matters. He said: “These matters are of the highest constitutional significance…It beats me that the Leader of the Opposition and the President and their respective counsel cannot meet to address the issues that confront us…”

He added that he wasn’t seeing the same type of urgency expected from the CCJ being reflected in the behaviour of the political directorate. This, he said, is “unfortunate.”

Justice Saunders added that the court didn’t want to make political decisions but that the rule of law had to be upheld. At one point, he dramatically brandished the Guyana Constitution and said that it had to be complied with.

Government had written to Jagdeo on June 21st seeking a meeting between him and President David Granger any time after the June 24th court date.

While Jagdeo acknowledged receipt of the letter, he did not respond before the hearing.

Following the court’s decision to give both sides more time to come to a consensus, Jagdeo’s team wrote to government expressing the party leader’s willingness to meet continuously on appointing a GECOM Chairman.

Harmon, by way of a letter on behalf of Granger, dated June 28th, 2019, replied saying that it was the government’s interpretation that the CCJ intended that “both the President and Leader of the Opposition will provide nominees on the list of six persons” from which a Chairman is to be selected.

According to his letter, this conclusion can be drawn from Paragraph 26 of the court’s ruling, which states, among other things, “The Court decided that the most sensible approach to operationalize the Article was for the Leader of the Opposition and the President to communicate with each other in good faith and to perhaps even meet to discuss eligible candidates for the position of Chairman before a list is formally submitted. The aim of these discussions must be to agree [on] the names of six persons who fit the stated eligibility requirements and who are not unacceptable to the President.”

Jagdeo disagreed with government’s interpretation and in response, a letter penned by PPP executive member Gail Teixeira noted that while Jagdeo is not “averse to the President informally suggesting names…for consideration,” said the list of six names must emanate from the Leader of the Opposition.