Attorney General Anil Nandlall says he is not surprised that the Guyana Elections Commission, (GECOM) has opted not to renew the contract for its Legal Counsel, Kurt DaSilva.

The Chairman of GECOM, retired Justice Claudette Singh sided with the Government nominated Commissioners to not renew DaSilva’s contract, citing his recent submissions to the Court in the voter verification case.

On his weekly “Issues in the News” programme last evening, the Attorney General said DaSilva “was the architect of his own design”.

He said Mr. Da Silva’s submissions to the Court were in total conflict with the instructions of the Commission, and could have caused public damage to the country and create a Constitutional crisis.

“We have to be very thankful, that we had a matured court and we had a court that understood the legal issues and had ruled on these matters before, or else he would have put the entire elections and electoral process in a tailspin and I tried several times during the hearing to guide the young man,” the AG stated.

Mr. DaSilva told the Court in his submissions that while voter verification may not be required for General Elections, it would be for Regional Elections to ensure voters reside in the regions that they registered to elect regional representatives.

He challenged many of the arguments put forward by the Attorney General during the Court case.

The Attorney General is now attacking the former GECOM Counsel for his submissions to the Court and has declared that he should have written a book if he wanted to make his own opinions placed before the Court.

“This young man is the architect of his own design, I have no problem is lawyers want to have a novel position, you can do that but get you client’s position. Don’t represent public authorities and constitutional bodies, because these bodies and these authorities can affect the public interest, the public good and the future of this country,” Mr. Nandlall stated.

The Attorney General said Mr. Da Silva by his arguments was effectively playing with the country’s future.

“In fact, because of this lawyer’s position, the case had to be recalled for additional arguments, the Chief Elections Officer issued a public statement repudiating this lawyer’s signature to the court and when the case was call again on the next occasion, the lawyer stood and argued a position in defiance of the position of his client, in fact he became more rabid than he was before,” Nandlall observed,” Mr. Nandlall stated.

The case brought by the PNCR calling for voter verification was dismissed by the Acting Chief Justice who also said she has taken note of the arguments put forward by the GECOM Counsel and thanks him for doing his duty in highlighting the conflicting laws to the Court as an officer of the Court.

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