Of course it could. That is what I have been saying. There was absolutely no reason why this register, which had already been drawn up, should not have been specifically validated as such by the Ordinance, but this was the error. It was a drafting error. They failed to put in this most important provision.

My right hon. Friend has been into this personally and with very great care. He is satisfied—and his view is endorsed by the Governor—that there is no doubt at all that the intention of both parties in the Gambia House of Representatives at the time was to hold the 1962 elections on this new 1961 register, which was, of course, what happened. But validation of the 1961 register was, in fact, frustrated by this faulty form of words used in the Ordinance. In short, the Ordinance was very badly drafted and the confusion arises from this legal and technical flaw which was missed by the High Court of Gambia, but spotted by the Court of Appeal.