Recount figures must be used to declare winner judges
The Court of Appeal yesterday threw out the appeal in the elections case filed on behalf of A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC’) s Misenga Jones to stop the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) from making a declaration of the elections results based on the recount figures. In a unanimous decision, High Court Justice, Priya Sewnarine- Beharry; Justices of Appeal, Dawn Gregory and Rishi Persaud agreed with the reasoning of the Acting Chief Justice (CJ), Roxane George-Wiltshire, that recount figures are the only data that can be used to determine the final result of the elections.
The recount figures show a victory for the Opposition led – People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) over the incumbent APNU+AFC by over 15,000 votes. Jones inter alia wanted the Court to decide that Chief Elections Officer (CEO) of GECOM, Keith Lowenfield, can submit the report derived from his own calculations in the process, rather than the recount figures despite a recent endorsement of the CARICOM- supervised recount process by the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) – Guyana ‘s Apex Court. Given the ruling of the CCJ in a similar matter, Jones request was considered wholly ill-conceived and a waste of the Court‘s precious time by the CJ (ag) in her judgment last week. In similar fashion, the appeal filed by Jones and her legal team was turned down by all three Justices at the Appeal Court. In separate rulings, all three Judges dismissed Jones’ appeal, as well as a cross appeal filed by Attorney General (AG) Basil Williams, meant to stop the declaration based on the recount. In her judgment, Justice SewnarineBeharry spoke to the issue of politics and abuse.
Noting that the appeal raised impermissible and duplicated litigation of issues already canvassed before the courts, Justice SewnarineBeharry asserted that the action was frivolous, vexatious and amounts to an abuse of the court’s process. In concurrence with the reasoning that the Court has a narrow jurisdiction to function in a supervisory role in the circumstance for the completion of the elections process, the judge held that on the question of the function of the CEO, he is a statutory officer of GECOM who is subject to the direction of the Commission and must therefore carry out his functions in accordance with its directives.(Kaieteur News)