Dear Editor,
IT seems that PPP/C’s legal representative and political spin-doctor, Anil Nandlall, is not so certain about his opposition party winning the March 02 National and Regional Elections as they have been crowing?
This observation is made against the background of a part of his press statement made last Saturday, when he alluded to the option of a court challenging the key aspect of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM)’s recount exercise, of an analysis of the balloting process on Election Day, and its stated intention to investigate the growing avalanche of what are very serious electoral criminalities, that points to PPP/C’S constituencies.
Editor, it is said that law is a noble profession, and for many reasons, because of its seemingly complex learning which regulates and pertains to all aspects of our lives, represented by men/women who are sworn to uphold its lofty tenets. But inherent in its practice is the fact that it reveals the dark side of humans. One supposes that this description pertains to those whose various acts of offences have been brought to light.
But it is also fair to say that one must also examine those who are its practitioners, and what they do, in terms of using its just dictums for totally dishonest ends.
And this has been the local experience within recent times, in matters of a political nature, where many of its retained legal practitioners, for the dangerously narrow ends of vested-interest politics and other blandishments, have sought to misrepresent its many clauses for anti-national ends that have not been a blessing or boon to the profession, its advancement, or to the wider society that has been pushed to the precipice of political stress. It is not for the latter to be repeated here, since the many examples have been graphically publicised during related matters before the nation’s court.
This undoubtedly applies to the Nandlalls of this country. For this legal spin-doctor to be brazenly arguing that “Anytime GECOM goes outside of the scope of that recount, GECOM will be exceeding its jurisdiction, GECOM will be acting without jurisdiction… it will be violating the very Order that it published and undertook to be governed by.”
This is blatant eye-pass and continuing disrespect of the GECOM, that brings to full scrutiny/exposure the total duplicity of a legal ‘rep’ who is guilty of wanton dishonestly and willful legal fraud in his attempts to twist a legal agreement that had been agreed to by his party’s side of the GECOM’S commission; an arrangement to which he must have been aware, because of his status as the Opposition party’s legal adviser. But, as with so many concluded arrangements, it is always that well-known PPP/C devious trick of seeking to repudiate such agreements, with the plan of having it withdrawn.
Surely Nandlall was not asleep in either the High Court, or Appeal Court, when GECOM’s wide powers were elucidated and expounded, in keeping with Article 162 of the Constitution, “so as to ensure an impartial and fair elections process”. It was further explained that Section 22 of the Elections Law (Amendment) Act is among the provisions that operationalises Article 162 of the Constitution.
Certainly, he would have welcomed such a ruling, since it validated his Party’s demand for a recount. But he and his Party did not cater for the kind of Orders which the GECOM was at liberty to construct, given the kind of scope that is inherent in its wide powers, as judicially advised.
In fact, in seeking to convey the false perception that the GECOM is acting beyond its legal remit, Nandlall is conveniently omitting the fact that Article 162 authorises the constitutional body to “issue such instructions and take such action as appear to it necessary or expedient to ensure impartiality, fairness and compliance with the provisions of the constitutions…” The fact of the matter, which Nandlall is attempting to spin, is that although it is said that the Constitution does not cater for a recount, which he is deviously seeking to represent, the said wider powers of the GECOM, as reminded by both courts, ascribes to the electoral body the full authority for the making of its rules for the current recount process, and any relevant action necessary to achieve satisfactory results.
It is a matter of both fact and record, of which Nandlall is fully aware but now dishonestly represents, as he desperately seeks to have his party escape from the criminalities found in the ballot boxes, that have originated from their strongholds. Again, he must be reminded that every action that is currently being undertaken by the electoral clerks are found within the gazzetted Order, as mandated.
Why would he want to challenge a gazzetted Order, executed by the GECOM, which is rooted in the authority as reminded by the Constitution? This is another devious trick in the PPP/C plot to not only destroy the credibility of the national elections body; it is also designed to bring to a halt the very process which is ongoing that exposes the true extent of the definite acts of political fraud being found. This is what Nandlall and his Party seeks to cover up, and deflect.
Regards,
Earl Hamilton
Source: https://issuu.com/guyanachroniclee-paper/docs/guyana_chronicle_epaper_26_05_2020