Chief Justice to rule tomorrow in Cabinet resignation case
Chief Justice Roxane George will render her decision tomorrow on whether the Cabinet of the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) government stands resigned, or is required to resign ahead of impending elections on March 2, 2019.
This is the latest development in Nandlall v. AG of Guyana, by which the Shadow Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister, Anil Nandlall, has sought to compel the coalition to resign following the successful passage of the noconfidence vote against it on December 21, 2018, and the June 18, 2019 decision of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).
The APNU+AFC coalition government has maintained that its interpretation of the Constitution and the CCJ decision suggests that Cabinet continues in caretaker mode until general and regional elections are held.
Nandlall, represented in these proceedings by attorney-at-law Kamal Ramkarran, filed an application on August 26, 2019
in the Supreme Court to compel Cabinet’s resignation, and to prevent Cabinet from meeting.
Submissions were required by September 23, 2019, a hearing took place on September 30, 2019. The State had applied to strike out the application on the grounds that it is an abuse of the process and an affront to the rule of precedent, arguing that the issue has already been considered by the CCJ, which declined to make an order regarding that specific issue.
However, in submissions, Ramkarran has argued that although the courts touched on these issues in their consideration of related matters, neither the lower courts (the High Court and the Court of Appeal) nor the CCJ, in previous proceedings, had been specifically asked to consider and rule upon the issues.
Both parties are expected to appeal the decision in the event that it is not in their favour, although neither party would be reached yesterday to confirm whether this will be done.
Given that President David Granger has appointed March 2, 2020 as the day on which General and Regional Elections will take place, it is unlikely that these proceedings will delay the impending elections, as was the case with the no confidence motion cases.