CCJ overturns decisions regarding Guyana’s Parliamentary Secretaries

The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) has upheld an appeal from the Attorney General of Guyana and two members of the ruling People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP). In a unanimous decision, the CCJ overturned prior rulings from the Guyana High Court and Court of Appeal, confirming the lawful appointments of Vikash Ramkissoon and Sarah Browne as parliamentary secretaries in the National Assembly.

Both individuals were included in the list of candidates presented by the PPP/C for the general and regional elections held on March 2, 2020.

But their membership and participation in the Assembly had been challenged by A Partnership for National Unity+ Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) parliamentarian and Opposition Chief Whip, Christopher Jones on the grounds that they ought not to do so because they are PPP candidates.

The Guyana Court of Appeal had upheld the High Court’s decision by Chief Justice Roxane George-Wiltshire that Brown and Ramkissoon’s participation and placement in the House was unlawful because they could not have done so other than by extraction from the list of candidates.

But in its ruling, the CCJ said that it agrees with counsel for the appellants that Browne and Ramkissoon were presumptively qualified to be elected as members of the National Assembly since, as candidates on the PPP/C list, they were each required to swear that they were qualified to be so elected and that the respondent adduced no evidence that they were not qualified to be elected.

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“The appeal is allowed and the orders of the courts below are vacated. This appeal enabled the court to address a constitutional issue that has posed challenges in the past, making its resolution significantly important to the public,” the CCJ said.

It said in the circumstances, each party shall bear their costs at the CCJ and the courts below.

Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall in welcoming the CCJ ruling, told the Demerara Waves Online News in Guyana that the decision meant that “constitutionalism has triumphed.

“The constitutional provisions in relation to this matter have now been finally and conclusively interpreted.

Whatever ambiguities and equivocations that may have existed, they have now been removed by a clear and precise judgement from our final court,” he said.