The Caribbean Court of Justice has dismissed an application made by attorney-at-law, Sanjeev Datadin, to defer tomorrow’s (April 26) sitting of the National Assembly until such time that the same court makes a final decision as to what constitutes a majority for the passage of a no confidence motion.
Datadin was acting on behalf of his client, Charrandas Persaud — the former Alliance For Change (AFC) Member of Parliament who voted with the People’s Progressive Party /Civic (PPP/C) opposition in favour of the December 21, 2018 no confidence motion.
The application was filed yesterday.
Today, the CCJ said that it considered “that the Order Paper convening the 113th sitting of the National Assembly of the First Session (2015-2019) of the Eleventh Parliament of Guyana at 2:00 pm on Friday the 26th day of April 2019 was issued on the 17th day of April 2019.”
CCJ said it noted the March 22, 2019 decision of the Court of Appeal of Guyana which declared that the December 21 no confidence motion was not validly passed in the National Assembly.
The CCJ then ruled, “And whereas until and unless this Court should reverse that decision of the Court of Appeal, the status of the Government and the National Assembly of Guyana is unaffected by the result of the vote on the motion of No Confidence of the 21st day of December 2018; and having considered that it would be imprudent in those circumstances for this Court to take the most unusual step of restraining the National Assembly from sitting as urged by the Applicant, it is ordered that pursuant to Part 9.7 (c) of the Caribbean Court of Justice (Appellate Jurisdiction) Rules 2019, the Notice of Application filed on the 25th of April 2019 is hereby dismissed. It is further ordered that the Applicant shall pay costs to the Attorney General of Guyana, to be assessed if not agreed.”
