Parties fail to agree Crucial court order due today Stabroek News January 26, 2001 Talks to reach an agreement on pre-election governance have broken down and the parties to the petition will await Justice Claudette Singh's order this morning. On Tuesday, Justice Singh had given the lawyers involved in the elections petition 48 hours to reach an agreement on what consequential orders they believed she should make in the light of her ruling that the 1997 elections were invalid. Justice Singh had ruled that the legislation passed to permit the compulsory use of voter ID cards was unconstitutional and as such the elections were not held in accordance with the law. Stabroek News understands that in the two meetings on Wednesday and yesterday, the lawyers from both sides refused to move from their respective positions. At one end was the insistence of Senior Counsel Rex McKay that the government should demit office and at the other, lawyers sympathetic to the government maintained that it should remain in power until new elections. Senior Counsel Miles Fitzpatrick adopted a middle path that would have seen the de facto government remain but with limited powers. But the only issue resolved in the hour-long meeting yesterday was that the judge should order new elections by March 31. A report will be sent to Justice Singh by this morning. With the breakdown of the talks, Justice Singh has to make her decision based on previous arguments presented by lawyers for both sides. Senior Counsel Ralph Ramkarran had invoked a doctrine of necessity that allows for laws and state institutions to remain valid. He noted that this case was the "mother of all necessities" and that for the sake of the country's stability and the rule of law the status quo should exist for the few weeks until fresh elections. McKay argued that the judge could hardly validate a government and parliament she had already deemed invalid by virtue of the flawed elections and he proposed a Transitional National Council to run the country for the next two months. Whatever her ruling today, it is understood that the government lawyers will immediately file an appeal to her original declaration that the ID card legislation was unconstitutional. They will contend that the ID card was merely a regulatory provision that did not restrict voter rights. Whether they will have to ask her for a stay of execution will depend on the nature of her order today. Follow the goings-on in Guyana in Guyana Today