President Arthur Raymond Chung, O.E.

Jun 25, 2008 Editorial

The Americans have an intriguing tradition when it comes to their Presidents: even after demitting office, they are still accorded the honour of being referred to as “President…” We believe that it is a custom that is worth emulating for several reasons, not the least being that it invokes a sense of continuity in the office of the Head of State, which in our case originally was the King or Queen of Britain. One does not, after all, refer to past monarchs as Henry or Anne.

It also lends dignity to the individual who occupied the office and served their country at the highest level. And this brings us to President Arthur Raymond Chung, O.E., who passed away at the venerable age of ninety.

For the pedants, President Chung was technically the second President, since Guyana was declared a Republic on February 23, 1970 and Mr Chung, while nominated, was not confirmed until March 17, 1970.

Sir E.V. Luckhoo, the Chancellor of the Judiciary, who had become Acting Governor-General upon the untimely accidental death of Governor-General Sir David Rose in November 1969, was thus the President between February 23, and March 17, 1970.

In his own person, President Chung epitomised much of Guyana’s modern history. A descendant of Chinese indentured servants, he was from Windsor Forest on the West Coast of Demerara. It was to this village, to which the first batch of Chinese labourers brought to Guyana — on the Glentanner on January 12, 1853 – were consigned, in addition to Pouderoyen and neighbouring La Jalousie.

After local primary schools, he would have commuted via the then existing train and ferry to the private high school in Georgetown. This implied that his parents had already acquired the means, most likely from owning a village shop, to afford the not inconsiderable expense.

He enjoyed cricket and retained a lifetime fondness for the game. His employment in the junior ranks of the civil service was also typical for the upwardly mobile young high school graduate, as was his utilising the opportunity to be trained as a land surveyor.

But it was obvious that World War II had opened the eyes of even the seemingly well set, and Mr Chung’s departure for England to study law at the end of the war coincided with that of another ambitious young Guyanese – Mr. L.F.S. Burnham.

It does not appear that their paths crossed in London – with Mr Burnham occupied with student politics, the League of Coloured Peoples, as well as public speaking, while Mr Chung worked briefly in a legal firm in England before returning home a year before Mr. Burnham, in October 1948.

He practised his craft until 1953, when he was appointed a magistrate in his native West Coast; while, of course, Mr. Burnham entered Government with the victory of the PPP in the first universal franchise election in the same year.

Mr. Chung married a girl from his native village in 1954, and continued to serve the law with steady and measured distinction. Called to act as a judge in the Supreme Court in 1962, he was confirmed in 1963, during the most troubled period in our nation’s history, and featured in several important decisions and cases.

By one account, he once created history when he broke a 78-year-old practice by ruling that the Director of Public Prosecutions had no jurisdiction to compel a magistrate to convict a person. His last case involved ten individuals accused of murder during the Rupununi Uprising of 1969.

Mr. Chung was the PNC nominee who won out over the PPP nominee, Mr. Ashton Chase. While some may say that President Chung was the Head of State during a period that witnessed many abuses by the Government of the day — and in doing so legitimised those abuses — we must also point out that individuals who were even more directly involved in the political process, such as the opposition, also played their roles.

President Chung was purely a ceremonial Head of State. It is to the credit of this most humble and simple man that his name was never dragged into any charge of acting outside the mandate of office.

With the introduction of the new constitution in 1980, which created an Executive Presidency, and the occupation of the same by Mr. L.F.S. Burnham, President Chung demitted office but remained in the land of his birth until his death. May his soul rest in peace.

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President Arthur Raymond Chung, O.E.

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