Case management set in appeal of election petition dismissal

The Guyana Court of Appeal has set Monday—April 12th—to conduct a case management conference (CMC) for the hearing of the appeal filed by the main opposition APNU+AFC to the dismissal of one of its two petitions challenging the March 2nd, 2020 General Elections.

In January, acting Chief Justice Roxane George-Wiltshire SC threw out the petition, brought by Monica Thomas and Brennan Nurse on behalf of the coalition, after finding that the APNU+AFC presidential candidate David Granger was not served on time.

Thomas and Nurse subsequently appealed the ruling, arguing, among other things, that the Chief Justice erred in law and misdirected herself by misapplying the doctrine of strict compliance and holding that such compliance related to the contents of the affidavit of service instead of the filing of the affidavit of service in a timely manner.

The petitioners’ contention is that the elections were unlawfully conducted and/or that the results (if lawfully conducted) were affected or might have been affected by unlawful acts or omissions. They nonetheless argue that from those polls it is Granger who should be declared the duly-elected President of Guyana.

They were seeking to have the court nullify the outcome and to declare President Irfaan Ali to be illegally holding office.

Apart from their contention that the Chief Justice erred in misapplying the doctrine of strict compliance, Thomas and Nurse also argue that she misdirected herself in concluding that leave was required to file a supplementary affidavit of service to give a more complete understanding of how service was effected on Granger and misdirected herself by failing to recognise that the purpose of Rule 9 of the National Assembly (Validity of Election) Rules (NAVoER), requiring service of an Affidavit, is to verify that service was achieved within the time prescribed by the statute, and that an error in the Affidavit does not affect the fact of service.

The petitioners contended, too, that the chief judge erred in her finding that Granger was a proper and necessary party to the petition.

Dismissing the contention advanced by attorneys for the petitioners, however, Justice George-Wiltshire had said that there was compelling evidence substantiating that Granger—a proper and necessary party to the petition—was not served with the petition on time as required by law.

In the other petition, which is proceeding, petitioners Claudette Thorne and Heston Bostwick want the court to determine, among other things, questions regarding whether the elections have been lawfully conducted or whether the results have been, or may have been affected by any unlawful act or omission and, in consequence thereof, whether the seats in the National Assembly have been lawfully allocated.

Arguments in this petition concluded on Wednesday and the Chief Justice has tentatively set April 26th for ruling.

The results of a national recount of all ballots cast showed that it was the PPP/C which had won the general elections with 233,336 votes over the coalition’s 217,920 votes.