Georgetown: An Essequibo Coast family has obtained legal advice to address the unauthorized use of their relative’s death certificate for political purposes by the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC).
The party claimed that the dead woman “Chitnandani Ramdass” voted at the March 2 polls. Something which did not occur according to the Guyana Elections Commission records.
Her name was unticked on the voters list, that is, the ‘pink list’ from the polling station indicating that there was no vote was cast in her name – as has been the case with most of the objections being made by the coalition during the ongoing recount exercise.
The incumbent APNU/AFC which uses the state media to broadcast political propaganda stated the issue of the dead and migrated voters are credible
APNU/AFC agent, Ganesh Mahipaul, said that he was made aware that persons are using the Facebook platform to accuse his party of lying to the public.
He said that he is aware that at this time, every party will want to have its own narrative, but the public must not be misguided into thinking that the claims of the APNU+AFC are on falsified grounds.
The woman’s family are upset with the way in which the Coalition is using their private records for political purposes.
Relatives told their attorney that they never granted permission for the Coalition party to access or even use the death certificate.
In fact, one relative explained that a Coalition representative from the area had gone to their house and collected the full name of his dead mother under the pretext of doing some other work.
Subsequently an article was published in the state media with the woman’s death certificate.
The woman’s family is contending that the death certificate is a personal document for the family and should not be published for the world to see.
Caretaker Minister Cathy Hughes had defended her party’s access to the document, telling media operatives that the persons were identified by the party through its fieldwork and that the certificates were later applied for and the $300 fee paid.
Former Attorney- General Anil Nandlall said if an individual has unapproved to access to an exempt document, specifically a death certificate, then that person would be committing an illegal act.
The lawyer was keen to point out Section 33 (3) of the Access to Information Act 2011 of Guyana, which explicitly reads that, “A document referred to in subsection (1) shall not be released without the notarized consent of the person who is the subject of the information in the document. Pursuant to subsection (6), in the case of a deceased person, only his next of kin can give consent to access.”The PPP/C executive said to the media outside of the National Recount site that, “People whose family members have died have great difficulty in receiving those certificates. These people are coming here and telling you that they have thousands.”
He went on to further highlight that Section 50 (4) of the Act which stipulates the penalty one would face should they be in contempt of such; “A person who knowingly is in unlawful possession of an exempt document commits an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine of three hundred thousand dollars and to imprisonment for six months.”
