A writ was filed in the High Court on Monday challenging the two term limit for the Presidency in Guyana. The action was filed by Attorney Shawn Allicock on behalf of Georgetown resident, Cedric Richardson.
The Attorney General of Guyana and the Speaker of the National Assembly have been named as the respondents.
In the action, the applicant is contending that the two term limit on the presidency is unconstitutional and the procedure and process by which that provision was placed In the constitution is unlawful and unconstitutional.
What the unknown applicant really wants is for the court to remove any hurdles that currently block a president who would have already served two terms in office from seeking a third term.
The only living former President to have served two terms in Guyana is Bharrat Jagdeo. He is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term as President. It’s unclear whether Mr. Jagdeo or a faction of his people’s progressive party has an interest in the matter. 
But in the writ, the applicant contends that “Act No 17 of 2001 passed by a two-thirds majority of members of the National Assembly that purportedly altered Article 90 of the Constitution “curtails and restricts the sovereign and democratic rights and freedom as a qualified elector to elect the person of former President Bharrat Jagdeo as the Executive President of Guyana.”
The Applicant further states that “Act No 17 of 2001 has the consequence (advertent or inadvertent) of restricting and curtailing the democratic rights and freedom of the electorate by purporting to eliminate from the Executive Presidential Candidate a person who has been re-elected as Executive President, for example former President Jagdeo.”
And he is also of the belief that “Act No 17 of 2001 has the effect of restricting or curtailing the democratic rights and freedom of the electorate providing for the non-eligibility of a person who has been re-elected as Executive President for presidential elections candidate, required for its legal validity the holding of a referendum of the people diminishes and reduces the level of democracy enjoyed by the electorate prior to the purported alteration and therefore required the holding of a referendum for such alteration.”
When the two term limit provision was passed in the national assembly, it was done so unanimously and under the Jagdeo presidency.
Filed: 3rd February, 2015
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