Charges against GECOM Chair have no merit – lawyers

A mere five days after Chief Elections Officer (CEO), Keith Lowenfield, was slapped with fraud charges, three charges of ‘misconduct’ have now been brought against the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Chair, Justice(Ret’d), Claudette Singh.

Those charges however, according to three prominent attorneys-at-law have no merit and represent another attempt by the A Partnership For National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) Coalition to abuse the judicial system.
Attorney-at-Law, Sanjeev Datadin, picked apart the three charges filed by the three ‘private citizens’ and noted that they are nothing more than a “blatant attempt at malicious prosecution.”
“There is absolutely no basis in it,” he told Kaieteur News, “it is an abuse of process. The foundation of the principles is that there must be specific duty laid out in some statute, guideline or book that says that Claudette Singh must do these things.”

Drawing a parallel to the charges that the CEO received, Datadin said that the first charge brought by one Onita Walcott of Victoria Village, East Coast Demerara (ECD) “made no sense.”
Explaining his stance, he pointed to the fact the CEO had no discretion to determine validity of “anything”, that power is vested in the High Court. However, Lowenfield took it upon himself to do same which is why he was charged.
He pointed to the alleged misconduct…that Singh between 14th March, 13th June and 23rd June, acted unlawfully when she refused to accept the CEO’s report.
The problem with this charge, according to Datadin, is that it is not the GECOM Chair who accepts or rejects the report, it is the GECOM Commission.

“She doesn’t take it,” he explained. “The task is for her to make a declaration but the declaration that she must make has to go to the board which is GECOM Commission, so you see why it would make no sense.”
Moving to the second charge brought by Lorraine Joseph of Melanie Damishana, East Coast Demerara, Datadin pointed out that while they alleged Justice Singh breached the Recount Order Number 60, no indications were given how it was done.

“How did she breach the Gazetted Order?”
He continued: “They haven’t said, which means that in itself is madness. Presumably, she is saying that they are not following Order 60. But if you look at Order 60, it speaks of GECOM, not the Commission…GECOM… so she has no role there.”
With regard to the third charge brought by Keith Ondaan of Amelia’s Ward, McKenzie, Linden, Datadin stated that while they are again alleging misconduct, “there is no provision in any law that says she has to Gazette anything…there is no provision; that is something she can choose to do or not to do.”

According to him, no criminal charges can be instituted on the GECOM Chair because there is no “statutory dictation or underpinning for the actions she took”.“We will have to teach them now misconduct is because apparently what they have done is they have learnt by the use of misconduct at the charges that have been laid against Lowenfield, that this is an interesting avenue for them to abuse. But they have no understanding, there are no statutory rights which they are alleging; there is no statutory dictation to her so they can be no misconduct.”

Senior Counsel, Ralph Ramkarran, was of the view that the charges are nothing more that “sign of desperation.”
In a short comment to Kaieteur News, Ramkarran stated: “This is part of APNU+AFC sign of desperation. Justice Claudette Singh is a woman of great respect and honesty and she is doing her job according to the laws and according to the Constitution.”

“There is nothing wrong,” he added “with her conduct so far. This is an attempt to intimidate the Chair.”
Also commenting on the charges was anti-corruption advocate and attorney-at-law, Christopher Ram. “I certainly don’t think that they have any merit.”
“I believe this is all part of a larger strategy by the PNCR elements of the APNU+AFC Coalition to frustrate the democracy process and return us to the era of rigged elections except that this time, I think it will have immensely adverse and unfavorable consequences on Guyana.”

Kaieteur News made efforts to reach out to attorneys-at-law Roysdale Forde and Nigel Hughes.
Hughes declined to comment on electoral matters and Forde, when contacted, stated that he had not seen the charges.