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The Alliance For Change and its partner GAP-ROAR have been vindicated by the Guyana Court of Appeal in their demand to be formally included in the House to House Registration exercise which commenced in January, 2008. All we asked for at the time was to be treated with respect by the Guyana Elections Commission by having our scruitneers remunerated in the same way as the other parliamentary parties’ scruitneers were. GECOM refused, and we were forced to seek judicial declarations as to our rights. Those rights have now been vindicated.
The Alliance For Change always felt confident that the decision of Justice Jainarayan Singh that there be a proportionate allocation of scrutineers’ monies to the combined opposition Parliamentary parties was going to be affirmed by the Guyana Court of Appeal.
This was so because it felt that to have held otherwise would have been unfair, unjust and most unreasonable, if not wholly perverse.
The Party is thus very happy at the judgment of the Court as handed down by Acting Chancellor Carl Singh in which GECOM’s appeal on every ground argued was dismissed.
Though the determination of the case may be a victory without any prize for the AFC - the PNC and PPP having already shared out amongst themselves nearly $200 million – the Guyanese people are the biggest winners on two very important legal issues. Firstly, the principle is now firmly established that GECOM as a constitutional entity must act fairly when deliberating on matters within its portfolio least it suffer scrutiny by our Judiciary if it does not. Secondly, the significant precedent is now established locally that any public-spirited citizen/taxpayer will have locus standi to institute legal proceedings for remedies against any Government wrong-doing, so as to ensure the upholding of the Rule of Law.
The judgment must also be seen as a stinging rebuke of the President’s ill-advised comment that monies from the public purse can be distributed as he and his Finance Minister sees fit -“at the benevolence of the Government”.
GECOM too will do well to commence a process to rehabilitate its lost creditability not only as a result of the judgment which affirms the proportional allocation of funds itself, but the condemnation by the Court which found its conduct in not responding with an affidavit in answer to the affidavit Patterson and Franklin in the High Court as wholly unacceptable for a constitutional body of such high importance in a matter of such gravity.
This approach by GECOM in wanting to appeal a decision of a Judge it felt no reason to enter an appearance before was rightly condemned by the Court of Appeal. The AFC feels that GECOM’s behaviour in this regard was tantamount to that of a criminal suspect who holds on to his right to silence yet wants to make legal submissions.
The objective must now be to work towards a genuinely professional, independent and fair culture in this important constitutional body. GECOM now has no other option. The first thing that it can start doing in this regard is to request of both the PPP/C and PNC/R to itemize the names of each scrutineer who worked and the days each worked and the monies paid to each and publicise this information on its website for public scrutiny. This will surely bring speculation about a creaming off of some $36m by the leaders of the PNC/R and a further $40m by the leaders of the PPP/C, of the respective $100m each has so far received, to an end.
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