The Minister has no authority to appoint another Ombudsman
Kaieteur News – Mr Kamal Ramkarran may have acted prudently in not proceeding with the Guyana Cricket Board elections. His decision has allowed interested parties some breathing space to consider the legality of Ramkarran’s own appointment as Ombudsman, and the implications of the vitality, by the Court, in the GCB elections in 2020.
Mr Ramkarran is a great young lawyer. He has a bright and promising legal career ahead of him. He should not despise that promise by engaging in acts that may call into question the legality of his appointment as Ombudsman.
The Cricket Administration Act has, in effect, been re-enacted. Increasing the stay of some of the provisions of that Act effectively means that – although individuals will disagree with this – the Act is enforced again.
The Cricket Administration Act is clear that the Minister appoints the first Ombudsman, not all Ombudsmen. This is consistent with the basic philosophy of the Act which only designates a ‘trigger’ role for government, after which the corporate body – the Country Boards and the GCB – takes control of their own affairs own and local cricket management.
Section 17 of the Cricket Administration Act provides for the Minister with responsibility for Sport to appoint the first Cricket Ombudsman after meaningful consultation with the West Indies Cricket Board. This provision is controversial because the WICB should not be conscripted to include itself in the elections of its associate Boards. This provision is an erroneous and erroneous legal insertion by the architects of the Cricket Administration Act. It can lead to the Act being revoked.
A cricket Ombudsman was previously appointed. In January 2015, it was announced that Dr. Winston Mc Gowan has been appointed as the first Ombudsman by the then Minister for Sport, Frank Anthony. He is said to have resigned thereafter but, even if he had not, his term would have ended.
The law is very clear that the Sports Minister only appoints the first Ombudsman. The Minister for Sport has no role in the election and appointment of any other Ombudsman.
Therefore, I told Mr Kamal Ramkarran that his appointment as Ombudsman was ultra vires of the law. Therefore he should not accept what is clearly an illegal appointment.
Section 10 of the Act implies that the Ombudsman must be elected by 2/3 of the members of the GCB. If two or more candidates compete for the Ombudsman, and neither of them gets this particular majority, then there must be run-off. So the Minister for Sport cannot take it upon himself to impose an Ombudsman, other than the first Ombudsman.
The Act is also clear about the role of the Ombudsman. The Act states that the Ombudsman “will be responsible for validating the Register of clubs and for carrying out the functions of the Returning Officer for the first election of the Guyana Cricket Board.”
Section 10, however, speaks to the Ombudsman tasked with fulfilling the role of Returning Officer for membership elections of the GCB but this has been applied by the previous subsection which speaks to ‘ The said Ombudsman is elected at an extraordinary meeting of the AGM.
Therefore the Minister with responsibility for Sport has no authority to appoint any other Ombudsman after the appointment of the first Ombudsman. His predecessor, Frank Anthony, had met the relevant provisions of the Act when he appointed Dr. McGowan in 2015.
The role of the Ombudsman in the election of County Boards is clear. The Sports Minister had raced on and set the elections date for the Demerara Cricket Board. But those elections are now open to legal challenge. The Cricket Administration Act gives the Ombudsman responsibility “for validating the Register of Clubs and for carrying out the functions of the Returning Officer for Guyana Cricket Board membership elections.”
That provision, Section 10 (3) is inadvertent. It provides for two basic tasks for the Ombudsman. The first of these is the validation of the Register of Clubs. The second is to act as the GCB Returning Officer. Both are unconnected because clubs do not participate in the GCB elections; County boards do.
The Ombudsman is required to check the Register of Clubs and as the only practical purpose of this verification is for County Board and subsidiary elections, those elections should only proceed if this verification has happen.
It is therefore anticipated that there will be a successful legal challenge to the elections of the Demerara Cricket Board as there was no Ombudsman elected to check the Register of Clubs. And once this happens, it will overturn any mandatory GCB elections.
Kamal Ramkarran should remove himself from this legal quagmire. He has no locus standi as his appointment is ultra vires of the law and, furthermore, GCB elections cannot proceed unless elections have been properly set up by the Demerara Cricket Board after the Register of Clubs must be duly authenticated by a duly elected Ombudsman.
This mess that KR now finds himself doing is not. But it can be undoing for him.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of this newspaper.)