Chief Justice sets date for arguments on challenge to house-to-house order
Acting Chief Justice Roxane GeorgeWiltshire is set to commence hearing arguments next Tuesday in the action brought by Lenox Shuman, Leader of the Liberty and Justice Party, who is challenging the validity of the order signed by former Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Chairman James Patterson for the conduct of the national house-to-house registration exercise.
At a case management conference yesterday afternoon, the judge ordered all parties to have their written submissions laid over with the court no later than 11 am next Tuesday.
Shuman’s case comes up for hearing one day before the Chief Justice is set to rule on an action filed by chartered accountant and attorney Christopher Ram, who is challenging the validity of the current house-to-house exercise.
Noting that Shuman’s challenge, like others before the court, touches and concerns facts surrounding the passage of the December 21st, 2018 no-confidence motion against the government, the judge asked that those details not be repeated in the legal submissions, as they are widely known and have been widely ventilated.
Against this background, noting that she was adopting an approach taken by the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) which had heard the no-confidence appeals, the Chief Justice outlined specific requirements for the submissions.
She said that legal submissions are to be no more than 10 pages long, using size 12 Times New Roman font and 1.5 line spacing. She noted that her Registrar will be instructed to reject any document which does not conform to the specifications.
The judge also admonished the parties to confine themselves specifically to what Shuman’s challenge is about—that being the announcement that the house-to-house registration exercise commence on July 20th , a time by which Patterson’s appointment was invalidated by the CCJ.
Given Ram’s action to the ongoing house-to-house registration exercise, which touches on many of the same issues raised by Shuman, Justice GeorgeWiltshire sought to enquire the difference between the two cases before her.
In response, Shuman’s attorney, Sanjeev Datadin, said that his client’s case is different from Ram’s, while advancing that while Ram is challenging the actual registration exercise, Shuman’s challenge is to the announcement made by Patterson for the exercise to commence on July 20th, by which time his appointment would have been invalidated.
According to Datadin, the declaration of the date by Patterson on June 11th was made in “bad faith,” and was “unreasonable,” since the challenge to the validity of his appointment was still being heard by the Trinidad-based CCJ—Guyana’s final appellate court.
On June 18th, the CCJ declared the process used by President David Granger to unilaterally appoint Patterson as Chairman of the GECOM to have been flawed and unconstitutional.
In his fixed date application, Shuman argues that since the appointment of Patterson as the GECOM Chairman was found to be void by the CCJ, it effectively rendered the order made under his hands void also.
As a result, he is seeking an order of certiorari quashing the order of June 11th, signed by Patterson, for the registration to commence on July 20th, while contending that the setting of the date was, among other things, unlawful and made in bad faith.
Shuman’s litigation is against GECOM and the Attorney General.