Lowenfield cannot serve 2 masters

Dear Editor,

It is public knowledge that the Attorney General filed an appeal to the Guyana Court of Appeal against the decision of Chief Justice (ag) Roxanne George, in the legal challenge filed in the High Court by Christopher Ram, challenging, inter alia, the house-to-house registration exercise commenced and later aborted by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM).
Currently, an Application for a Stay of Execution of the Chief Justice’s Ruling is pending before the Court of Appeal.
Having regard to the fact that GECOM is piloting Guyana’s electoral machinery in preparation for elections announced by putative President, Mr. David Granger, to be held on the 2nd March 2020, and with the process far advanced towards the preparation of an Official List of Electors (OLE), the reason and rationale for this appeal and the Application for a Stay of Execution must bewilder the rationale mind.

For if successful, the house-to-house registration exercise will, presumably, resume and names from the National Register of Registrants (NRR) would be removed on the ground of residency. To facilitate the implementation of such a Court Ruling, expectedly, all preparations for a 2nd March 2020 polls would have to be halted and start all over again.
That this concatenation of events is exceptionally preposterous, if not incomprehensible, must be clear to all, except of course, the Attorney General, known to orbit in his own peculiar world.
What is equally reprehensible is the duplicitous role being played by Keith Lowenfield.
Holding the two pivotal offices of the Commissioner of Registration and that of Chief Elections Officer (CEO), the laws of this land concatenate to place Mr. Lowenfield in the driving seat of Guyana’s electoral machinery, as the executor of decisions of the Commission, as well as the statutory Czar of the entire electoral network.
In short, it is Mr. Lowenfield, who is the architect of all the preparatory works being done for the 2020 elections, as prescribed by law.
On the other hand, on the 5th day of November 2019, in the very appeal filed by the Attorney General, Mr. Lowenfield, who is not even an Appellant in the proceedings, swears a 24 pages Affidavit comprising of 57 paragraphs, mirroring and supporting the positions of the Attorney General, who is seeking a Stay of Execution of the Chief Justice’s Ruling, pending the hearing and determination of the appeal.
In effect, Mr. Lowenfield is advocating for the house-to-house registration exercise to resume and for names to be removed from the NRR on the ground of residency.
In that Affidavit, the position articulated by Mr. Lowenfield, under oath, and his posture in the proceedings as a whole, place him on a collision course, not only with the Commission, as it discharges its constitutional responsibilities, but also with Lowenfield, himself, in the discharge of his statutory functions in the current electoral process.
This incestuous and amphibious position that Mr. Lowenfield has assumed have placed him in a violent conflict of interest conundrum with his oath of office that can be regarded as undermining, if not betraying, the work of the Commission.
The matter is compounded by his failure to disclose to the Commission, his role in the Court of Appeal.
Indeed, the Opposition Commissioners with whom I have spoken, have informed me that the Commission was not even aware that he was part of those proceedings.

In a nutshell, Mr. Lowenfield wants to serve two masters, but the law does will not countenance that. He must choose one, or resign.

Mohabir Anil Nandlall MP,
Attorney-at-Law