CCJ concludes oral arguments in appeal of dismissed elections petition
Having concluded oral arguments on Tuesday, the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) said that it would notify parties of its judgment in the consolidated appeal filed by Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo and Attorney General Anil Nandlall, SC, against a ruling of the Guyana Court of Appeal (COA).
On January 18, 2021, Chief Justice Roxane George dismissed election petition 99 of 2020, which Monica Thomas and Brennan Nurse filed over improper service on former President David Granger, within the statutorily prescribed time.
Petition 99 of 2020 challenges the results of the March 2, 2020, General & Regional Elections and seek to have Granger declared the duly-elected President.
Attorney-at-Law, Roysdale Forde, SC, and Trinidadian Attorney, John Jeremie, SC, who are representing the petitioners, had moved to the COA to have the Chief Justice’s decision set aside.
On December 21, 2021, the COA handed down a majority 2-1 decision ruling that it has jurisdiction to hear the petition’s appeal.
The majority ruling was supplied by the Chancellor of the Judiciary Yonette Cummings-Edwards and Justice of Appeal Dawn Gregory, SC, while Justice of Appeal Rishi Persaud had a contrary judgment.
However, during the oral arguments today before Justices Jacob Wit, Winston Anderson, Maureen Rajnauth-Lee, Peter Jamadar, and Denys Barrow, the AG argued that the COA had no jurisdiction to hear and determine the appeal.
Nandlall advanced that the Chief Justice’s determination is not final but interlocutory. As such, he argued that there is no statutory or constitutional jurisdiction for the COA to hear the petition.
He maintained that an election petition is given an “extraordinary, special, limited and peculiar” jurisdiction under Article 163 of the Constitution to be heard by the High Court.
But because the election petition never went to trial, he said that the appellate court has no jurisdiction to hear the petition.
Nandlall relied on the case of Cuffy and others v Skerrit and others, which the CCJ recently dismissed.
In this case, the CCJ dismissed an application for special leave to appeal against the decision of the Court of Appeal of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court relating to 10 election petitions which challenged the results of the 2019 general elections in Dominica.
The CCJ had uncovered that the trial judge did not reach the stage where he would have determined the question of whether a candidate was validly elected or not.
The CCJ held that the trial Judge’s decision was not final but interlocutory and dismissed the matter.
Meanwhile, Jeremie contended that the right of an appeal to a dismissed election petition lies under Article 123 of the Constitution and the Court of Appeal Act. He added that Chief Justice’s ruling was a final order, which can be appealed to the COA.
