GECOM faces call for judicial review of TNM’s Asha Kissoon’s parliamentary seat to untie legal knots

Last Updated on Tuesday, 17 December 2024, 21:50 by Writer

The seven-member Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) is now grappling with a call by opposition-nominated election commissioner, Charles Corbin for a judicial review of whether leader of The New Movement (TNM) Dr Asha Kissoon is properly a parliamentarian, another opposition commissioner Vincent Alexander said Tuesday night.

Mr Alexander said himself and the third opposition-backed election commissioner, Desmond Trotman would join Mr Corbin in escalating the call for a judicial review, against the background of GECOM’s Legal Officer Kurt Da Silva recently saying that the election management body erred when it certified Dr Kissoon as the replacement for Liberty and Justice Party’s (LJP) Lenox Shuman under the joinder system.

Mr Alexander said “I don’t have a big problem” with the LJP, TNM and A New and United Guyana sharing the lone parliamentary seat because “it is in the spirit of the law”. Apart from his position, he conceded that the law does not provide for decertification of parliamentarians, but once GECOM has the authority to certify then it is responsible for the entire process. “The question is whether the Speaker can act on that,” he added.

Ruling People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC)-nominated Election Commissioner, Attorney-at-Law Sase Gunraj said only the court could remove the TNM member on the basis of an application by the aggrieved party, not GECOM. “The reality is once Asha Kissoon has been nominated and sworn into parliament, you got to court to move her out…Court is the only option. GECOM can’t take her out of parliament,” he told Demerara Waves Online News.

Based on conversations with several sources at GECOM and elsewhere, the High Court could be asked to determine the following questions:

• What is the formula for “combination lists”/joinder parties to determine their parliamentarians?
• Is Dr Kissoon properly a parliamentarian?
• If Dr Kissoon is not properly a parliamentarian, could GECOM decertify her legally?
• If GECOM could not decertify Dr Kissoon, what is the role of the Speaker of the National Assembly in removing Dr Kissoon and having her replaced?
• Could former TNM Member Gerald Forde still write the Speaker of the National Assembly as Representative of the List of Candidates to recall Dr Kissoon?
• Who is the Representative of the List of Candidates for joinder parties?
• Was Dr Kissoon properly appointed by TNM as her party’s Representative of the List of Candidates?

Mr Alexander alleged that there were irregularities in Dr Kissoon replacing Mr Forde as Representative of the List of Candidates. “She produced documentation which does not meet the requirement for a Representative of the List,” he said.

Commissioner Alexander said GECOM did not formally write to the House Speaker on the matter “because they don’t have a consensus on the matter.” He said Dr Kissoon was a parliamentarian at the behest of the governing People’s Progressive Party Civic whose parliamentarians had backed her for the post of Deputy Speaker.

While the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) and the Alliance For Change (AFC) have been calling on GECOM to decertify Dr Kissoon because of its own mistake, that election management body has not budged. AFC Leader, Nigel Hughes on Tuesday again called on GECOM to remove Dr Kissoon from the House, but was worried that such a case could take a number of years before the matter is settled. He said it was not the political parties’ place to take legal action but GECOM should instead do so. “If GECOM needs guidance from the court, GECOM needs to go to court. Why is this suddenly an issue for the Alliance For Change? This is an issue [for] who are the authors of this confusion and if GECOM has caused the confusion and they’re headed by none other than a retired Justice of Appeal, why don’t they go to court?,” he queried.