After spending her Saturday listening to arguments from Attorneys representing the Guyana Elections Commission and the People’s Progressive Party Civic, Chief Justice Roxanne George has set 1:30 pm on Sunday for the handing down of her decision on whether the injunction blocking the full declaration of results should stand or be thrown out.

That injunction was granted to the PPP on Thursday by Justice Navindra Singh. It essentially prevents the Chief Elections Officer from declaring the final results of the elections until there is a completion of the verification of the Region 4 results.

The Guyana Elections Commission moved to the Court and the Chief Justice seeking an order to dismiss the injunction.

GECOM’s Attorney Neil Boston told the Court that it did not have the jurisdiction to order the Guyana Elections Commission to complete the verification process before making a final declaration.

He reminded the Court that the Guyana Elections Commission, like the Judiciary, is an independent body and if there is a need to challenge the results of the elections then it ought to be done through an elections petition and not by any injunction.

“The Court has no jurisdiction to determine the issue at this intermediate stage. The election is still in process. And it can only be challenged pursuant to Article 163 of the Constitution by way of an election petition. There is no two-stage process”, Boston told reporters after the hearing.

The People’s Progressive Party flew in senior Trinidad and Tobago Attorney, Douglas Mendez to support Attorney Anil Nandlall in today’s hearing.

The two contended that the Court has jurisdiction to instruct the Elections Commission to lawfully complete the process of full verification before the declaration. They based their arguments on the electoral laws and the need for verification of results to be completed before the declaration.

“Here you have a situation where they are not complying with a statutory code before the final results are declared, which will eventually lead to the declaration of wrong results”, Attorney Nandlall contended.

He said Section 84:1 of the Representation of the Peoples Act provides for the Returning Officer to count the votes in the presence of all the parties and the counting referred to in the legislation is really the verification.

The Chief Justice grilled the Attorneys on their arguments and sought several clarifications during today’s hearing. The matter which started at 10 o’clock this morning ended just after 4 o’clock this afternoon.

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