Justice Singh was simply stating the correct legal and constitutional position in relation to voting

Last Friday, Justice Claudette Singh (Rtd), the Chairwoman of GECOM spoke at the opening ceremony of two GECOM Registration Offices, at Corriverton and Whim, respectively, Region 6.

Justice Singh is quoted in the Chronicle as stating “in order to vote you must be registered… that is your first task; you must be registered before you exercise your constitutional right to vote”.

These statements were swiftly pounced upon by the Government propagandists and twisted to suit their political agenda, to contend that Justice Singh is supportive of House-to-House Registration.

The truth is that there is nothing in those statements which, expressly, or by implication, supports such warped contention. But then again, there is hardly a statement, a provision of the law, or the constitution, or a court ruling, which the Government and its acolytes have interpreted correctly, in recent times.

In his weekly column, “My Turn”, published in Sunday Chronicle, the Prime Minister once again illustrates that he is the intellectual author of the Government’s propagandistic rhetoric. In last Sunday’s article, he wrote, “the new Chairman of GECOM, Madam Justice Claudette Singh, seem to be supporting the Commission’s campaign [H2H]. She was quoted as saying last Friday that, `in order to vote you must be registered. That is your first task; you must be registered before you exercise your constitutional right to vote’”.

Justice Singh was simply stating the correct legal and constitutional position in relation to voting. To draw any other inference from that statement would be grossly perverse.

What the Prime Minister, and those who blindly follow him in this hopeless effort to distort, fail to realize, is that Justice Singh was speaking at the opening of two centres established for the purpose of registration, under the Continuous Cycle of Registration established under the National Registration Act, which centres have nothing to do with House-toHouse Registration, which as the name suggests, is done on a “House-to-House” basis and therefore without the need for such registration centres.

Yours faithfully, Anil Nandlall