Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) Executive Member, Anil Nandlall is criticizing the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM)’s Chairperson, Justice (Retired) Claudette Singh’s decision for suspending the vote verification process for Region 4.
At around 15:30hrs today, GECOM said that its Chairperson was only in receipt of the Order of Court, and that she has noted the admonitions in the written judgment and was promised that a copy of it would be delivered to her by the end of the day.
This basis for the suspension has been met with much criticism from Nandlall, who during a press conference this afternoon at Freedom House, called out Singh, “a judge with over 30 years experience” that her request in his view is “quiet sinister.”
According to Nandlall, a former Attorney General, to claim that one needs to read the written judgment before they comply with the orders of the court is “farcical and fanciful.”
Nandlall further said that one does not need to read the written judgment in order to comply with the court orders, as the latter normally comes years after a case is concluded. Nandlall pointed out that the orders of the Chief Justice are written in clear, unambiguous and unequivocal language.
He added, “All of you read it and understand it except a judge of 30 years standings.” He sought to remind that when a case is concluded it is the Order of the Court that binds the parties and not the written judgment, which he said, is just a chronology of the thinking of the judge as how he/she arrived at the orders.
Noting that there is a legal timeframe in which the exercise has to be completed, it is too much for persons not to draw adverse conclusion from the Chief Justice’s order.
Touching on his intentions to file Contempt of Court proceedings against Region Four’s Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo, Nandlall clarified that this has to do with him failing to comply with the court’s orders, and nothing to do with the written judgment of the Chief Justice.