Joel Julien

in Guyana

joel.julien@guardian.co.tt

At­tor­neys call­ing for the ver­i­fi­ca­tion process of votes in Re­gion Four Guyana crossed a sig­nif­i­cant le­gal hur­dle on Sun­day as Chief Jus­tice of Guyana Rox­anne George-Wilt­shire ruled that the High Court has the ju­ris­dic­tion to hear the mat­ter.

This de­ci­sion means that Guyana still has to wait to find out who their new Pres­i­dent will be.

The Guyana Elec­tions Com­mis­sion (GECOM) has to await the out­come of the mat­ter be­fore it could move ahead with any fi­nal de­c­la­ra­tion of Mon­day’s elec­tion re­sults.

George-Wilt­shire has set Tues­day at 2 p.m. for the mat­ter to be heard.

The court hear­ing to de­cide whether or not the High Court had the pow­er to stop GECOM from de­clar­ing the re­sults of Mon­day’s elec­tions be­gan at 1.30 pm yes­ter­day at Court­room One of the Guyana High Court yes­ter­day.

Be­fore George-Wilt­shire be­gan her rul­ing she ad­mon­ished both par­ties to re­spect the court’s de­ci­sion.

“Re­spect the court and the court’s de­ci­sion even if you do not like it,” George-Wilt­shire stat­ed to the packed court­room.

She said re­spect for the court is “para­mount”.

Af­ter re­cap­ping the ar­gu­ments made by both sides, George-Wilshire ruled that the court was the ju­ris­dic­tion to hear the in­junc­tion.

Se­nior Coun­sel Neil Boston who rep­re­sent­ed the re­spon­dents in the mat­ter ar­gued on Sat­ur­day that an elec­tion pe­ti­tion and not an in­junc­tion was the way to ad­dress the prob­lems be­ing raised.

How­ev­er, George-Wilt­shire said, “a court can­not shirk its su­per­vi­so­ry du­ty”.

Se­nior Coun­sel Dou­glas Mendes who lead the team that filed the in­junc­tion told the court he had some con­cerns about an email sent by Chief Elec­tion Of­fi­cer Kei­th Lowen­field on Sat­ur­day night to GECOM com­mis­sion­ers stat­ing that he had pre­pared the fi­nal re­port for sub­mis­sion to the com­mis­sion.

In his email, Lowen­field called on GECOM chair­per­son Claudette Singh to call for a meet­ing of the com­mis­sion at her ear­li­est con­ve­nience.

Mendes ques­tioned why Lowen­field, who is named in the in­junc­tion, was ab­sent from the court dur­ing yes­ter­day’s hear­ing.

He said the email sent af­ter Sat­ur­day’s court mat­ter was a “flout­ing of the or­der” by the court while the pro­ceed­ings were still on­go­ing.

Mendes hint­ed at the pos­si­bil­i­ty of con­tempt of court pro­ceed­ings be­ing tak­en against Lowen­field.

Mendes said he was con­cerned by Lowen­field’s ac­tions.

In re­sponse, Boston read a re­lease from the Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer of GECOM Yolan­da Ward.

“The re­cent ac­tion of the Chief Elec­tion Of­fi­cer in­di­cat­ing to the chair­per­son and the com­mis­sion­ers that his re­port in re­la­tion to the fi­nal de­c­la­ra­tion was com­plet­ed was not in­tend­ed to dis­re­gard the court pro­ceed­ings but rather ap­pris­ing the chair­per­son of the com­ple­tion of the doc­u­ment and that she may con­vene a meet­ing at her con­ve­nience,” Boston said.

Boston said GECOM will abide by all le­gal and pro­ce­dur­al re­quire­ments to con­clude its work.

George-Wilt­shire gave Boston un­til 10 am Tues­day to file his re­sponse to the in­junc­tion.

Speak­ing to the me­dia fol­low­ing the rul­ing Boston said he was “dis­ap­point­ed” by George-Wilt­shire’s de­ci­sion and he did not agree with it.

Boston said he still be­lieves that an elec­tion pe­ti­tion is the way this sit­u­a­tion should have been han­dled.

“We un­der­stand the ur­gency of this mat­ter we want it to be heard and de­ter­mined so Tues­day we are com­ing back,” the for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al of Guyana Mo­hab­ir Anil Nand­lall a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the le­gal team that filed the in­junc­tion stat­ed yes­ter­day.

Sup­port­ers of the rul­ing Part­ner­ship For Na­tion­al Uni­ty and Al­liance For Change (AP­NU+AFC) that lined the street out­side the High Court yes­ter­day called for David Granger to again be sworn in as the coun­try’s Pres­i­dent.

Boston told the crowd not to lose hope when he ad­dressed them on the way to his ve­hi­cle.

Granger yes­ter­day met with the for­mer prime min­is­ter of Ja­maica Bruce Gold­ing and his team from the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS) Ob­serv­er Mis­sion in Guyana at the Min­istry of the Pres­i­den­cy.

Granger told the OAS team that GECOM is an “in­de­pen­dent and con­sti­tu­tion­al body” and as­sured them that he await­ing the rul­ing of the court on the mat­ter and ul­ti­mate­ly the de­c­la­ra­tion by the elec­tions com­mis­sion.

Granger said it would be “im­prop­er and un­law­ful” for him to in­ter­fere in the work of GECOM.

“It would be un­law­ful. I have no role to play. The mat­ter is be­fore the Chief Jus­tice and I will await the rul­ing of the Chief Jus­tice,” Granger stat­ed.

Granger al­so con­demned the lev­els of vi­o­lence be­ing met­ed out be­cause of protest ac­tion.

The ex­tent of in­juries sus­tained by in­di­vid­u­als as a re­sult of the on­go­ing vi­o­lent protest ac­tion tak­ing place across Guyana has now come to the fore.

Po­lice Sergeant Punit Ibaran who was at­tacked by armed pro­tes­tors on Fri­day night had both arms bro­ken, a chop wound to the back of his head, and lac­er­a­tions about his body.

Ibaran was among three po­lice of­fi­cers who were at­tacked by an an­gry mob in the vil­lage of Cot­ton Tree.

Sew­dat Han­sraj, 18, who is al­leged to have at­tacked Ibaran was shot dead by po­lice dur­ing the in­ci­dent.

The oth­er two po­lice of­fi­cers in­jured dur­ing the in­ci­dent were con­sta­bles Ron Grant and Jaf­ta Fras­er.

Grant and Fras­er were yes­ter­day dis­charged from the New Am­s­ter­dam Hos­pi­tal.

Ibaran re­mains hos­pi­talised.

Three oth­er po­lice of­fi­cers, in­clud­ing an As­sis­tant Su­per­in­ten­dent, were al­so in­jured in an­oth­er protest ac­tion in the vil­lage of Tain.

Woman po­lice con­sta­ble Tussie Waller­son suf­fered a frac­tured foot while woman po­lice con­sta­ble Shomei­ka Wick­ham re­ceived oth­er in­juries af­ter be­ing stoned by pro­tes­tors.

The Guyana Po­lice Force yes­ter­day said the of­fi­cers will be pro­vid­ed with the nec­es­sary coun­selling re­quired.

Six school chil­dren who were in­jured af­ter the bus car­ry­ing them to class­es was stoned by pro­tes­tors at the Bush Lot Vil­lage, Ma­haica-Berbice area have all been dis­charged from hos­pi­tal.

The in­jured chil­dren have been iden­ti­fied as Christo­pher Srik­ishun, Oris­sa No­ble, Roen Bobb, Be­y­once Kno­ble and Jahia Phil­lan­der from the Fort Welling­ton Sec­ondary School and Mari­ah Jacque from the Bush Lot Sec­ondary School.

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of the Pres­i­den­cy Si­mona Broomes on be­half of Pres­i­dent David Granger vis­it­ed the home of the six in­jured chil­dren yes­ter­day.

Be­fore his meet­ing with the OAS team, Granger went to Christ Church’s Sun­day Mass in com­mem­o­ra­tion of the sec­ond Sun­day of Lent.