A letter from prominent citizens in SN last Friday called for consultation on electoral reforms. But drafting of the bill may have already commenced requiring the publication of the SOPs by GECOM immediately upon receipt and the creation of appropriate offences with severe penalties for election staff who violate election rules.
Continue reading “ELECTION LEGISLATION REFORM”IT TOOK LONGER THAN EXPECTED
It took longer than expected for the challenge to the jurisdiction of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) to materialise. In expressing support for electoral reform in an interview on May 14, Leader of the PNCR and former President David Granger said that the Guyana Court of Appeal, and not the CCJ, should rule on electoral matters. Describing the foreign influence to be ‘phenomenal,’ ‘relentless’ and ‘toxic, he said that the ‘very strong’ Court of Appeal was competent to rule on electoral matters inside Guyana. If Mr. Granger was referring to the CCJ as foreign, he is badly mistaken. It is as indigenous as cook-up and pepperpot.
Continue reading “IT TOOK LONGER THAN EXPECTED”ISRAEL’S RIGHT TO DEFEND ITSELF, PALESTINE’S RIGHT TO SURVIVE.
In Sheikh Jarrah, a Palestinian neighbourhood in Jerusalem, captured and since occupied by Israel in the Six Day War in 1967, Israel sought to evict six Palestininian families, who have been in occupation since 1948 or before. The attempted expulsion is based on an Israeli law which gives Jews the right to recover property that they had owned in 1948 and before. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled from Palestine by Jewish armed groups in 1948 but they do not have the same right. The attempted eviction started the unrest in Jerusalem around the Al Aqsa Mosque, one of the holiest shrines in Islam, in this month of Ramadan. It was viciously suppressed by Israeli troops by attacking only Palestinians, not provocative Israeli thugs
Continue reading “ISRAEL’S RIGHT TO DEFEND ITSELF, PALESTINE’S RIGHT TO SURVIVE.”SUBTLE AND INVISIBLE – THE DRAINING OF THE SOUTH
Cheddi Jagan railed for decades in hundreds of articles and thousands of speeches at the unfair and exploitative extraction of wealth by the developed industrial countries from the poor South, with an enviable command of facts and figures. In the 1980s he travelled with a chart of figures in the trunk of his car. Whenever he saw a group of people, he would stop the car, take out the chart and deliver an impromptu lecture on the issue of exploitation. He demonstrated over and over again that the wealth extracted from poor countries, particularly Latin America and former British colonies, which he knew best, far exceeded the aid and investment that was received. No one who ever listened to him would be unaware of the overthrow of the Arbenz Government in Guatemala in 1954 and the Mossadeq Government in Iran in 1953. Both tried to defend and protect their countries from exploitation – Arbenz by agrarian land reform and Mossadeq by nationalising the Anglo-American Oil Company. Both countries suffered decades of brutal dictatorship, and genocide in Guatemala, thereafter.
Continue reading “SUBTLE AND INVISIBLE – THE DRAINING OF THE SOUTH”A BOLD, COMPELLING AND ERUDITE ANALYSIS
The decision of Chief Justice Roxane George-Wiltshire (CJ) is a bold, compelling and erudite analysis of the law relating to the interpretation of what the public now knows as Section 22 and Order 60. These refer to Section 22 of the Election Laws (Amendment) Act and Order 60 of 2020 made by the Elections Commission under the power to do so given by Section 22, to facilitate the recount of the votes cast in the March 2, 2020, elections. The CJ found that neither Section 22 nor Order 60 violates the Constitution and both are valid, lawful and intra vires, that is, within the powers granted by Article 162 of the Constitution and Section 22. The CJ also found that there is no evidence of unlawful acts to sustain the allegation that such alleged acts affected the results of the elections. This decision is now binding on all parties. It is not ‘pending’ or ‘temporary’ or ‘subject to appeal.’ It is a ‘final’ decision.
Continue reading “A BOLD, COMPELLING AND ERUDITE ANALYSIS”