Last updated on Tuesday, 20 April 2021, 16:17 by Denis Chabrol
The High Court on Tuesday ruled that two People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Parliamentary Secretaries illegally sit in the National Assembly as non-voting parliamentarians because they were elected as candidates for a political party.
“I have concluded that the third and fourth respondents are not legitimate members of the National Assembly as their membership is by virtue of their appointment as parliamentary secretaries and I declare so,” Chief Justice Roxane George -Wiltshire. He added that on the basis of that statement, the appointment of Sarah Browne and Vikash Ramkissoon was also unlawful.
“They cannot be elected and non-elected members at the same time,” he said. Ms. drew. George-Wiltshire commented that Parliamentary Secretaries, who are considered junior ministers, may have voting rights if they are removed from the list of elected members by the List Representative.
The Chief Justice said her decision now cleared the way for National Assembly Spokesperson Mansoor Nadir to remove Sarah Browne and Vikash Ramkissoon who had non-elected members of the House because they were not removed from the list of candidates and therefore not eligible to vote in the Assembly.
Opposition Chief Whip Christopher Jones challenged their appointments through his lawyer, fellow opposition senator Roysdale Forde.
Attorney General Anil Nandlall later on Tuesday filed an appeal, saying the Chief Justice had misinterpreted and misinterpreted the provisions of the Guyana constitution and in Desmond Morean’s challenge of appointing two elected members of the House as technocratic ministers, and wrongdoing -directing herself in many aspects of her decision. “T.he A decision o the learned Hearing Judge doing not match with the clearly a unambiguously bind language o the G. Constitutionuyana, ”he said.
The Chief Justice also flashed Attorney General Anil Nandlall for arguing against his own positions in an almost identical case where PPP Desmond Morean had successfully challenged then President David Granger’s appointment of a Partnership on for National Unity + Alliance for Change (APNU + AFC) candidates Winston Felix and Keith Scott as ministers without voting rights. “After arguing otherwise, I concluded that Mr Nandlall was now trapped by his previous successful submissions and was now trying to say that Morean’s result was wrong,” said the Chief Justice.