The Attorney General of Guyana and the Counsel for the Speaker of the National Assembly have both indicated that they will now move to the Caribbean Court of Justice with the Presidential Third Term Case.
That move comes in wake of the decision of the Appeal Court of Guyana today to uphold the decision of former Chief Justice (ag) Ian Chang that the National Assembly erred when it passed legislation to limit the number of times someone could be elected as President.
Acting Chancellor, Justice Carl Singh and Justice B.S Roy in their decision offered support of Justice Chang’s ruling and threw out the appeal.
Justice Singh in his ruling offered the view that the decision to limit the Presidential terms should have gone to the electorate via a referendum and not be made by the National Assembly solely. Justice B.S Roy would only tell the court that he agreed with all that Justice Singh had to say. He offered no other statements.
Acting Chief Justice Yonnette Cummings-Edwards was the only one who did not find favour with Justice Chang’s ruling among the three Appeal Court Justices.
She offered the view that by the electorate choosing the members of the National Assembly via elections, they would have given that power to the members to make amendments to the Constitution.
The case was filed against the Attorney General and the National Assembly back in 2015 by Georgetown resident, Cedric Richardson, while the PPP was still in government.
It was back in 2000 under the same PPP administration that the National Assembly with a two-thirds majority passed amendments to the Act governing eligibility to seek the Presidency of Guyana.
Those amendments made it ineligible for someone who would have been elected to serve as President twice to seek a third term.
Currently, the only former President who would have served a third and could benefit from the case is Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo.
He has in the past indicated that he has no interest in seeking a third term. But he had also indicated that he had no interest in seeking elected office again, then he changed his mind and ran for a parliamentary seat under the PPP during its losing bid at the 2015 polls.
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