Is the state a faithful partner with which any professional can blindly strike an agreement?

Oct 27, 2008 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,
The Kaieteur News story of Friday, October 24 captioned, “Former Chief Magistrate will be paid,” may appear to the casual observer as though the state, via the judiciary, will faithfully honour its end of whatever contractual agreement exists between the state and the former Chief Magistrate, Ms. Juliet Holder-Allen, who resigned in frustration on September 1, after waiting four years for the outcome of what appeared to be an open-ended probe into allegations of work-related misconduct by her.

But to the keen observer, Ms. Holder-Allen’s four-year wait appeared designed to frustrate her into resigning, and it may be proof that the state is not a faithful partner with which any professional can blindly strike an agreement and expect professional treatment.

Moreover, the fact that acting Chancellor, Justice Carl Singh, who is also the Chairman of the Judicial Service Commission, openly and eagerly promised that Ms. Holder-Allen will be paid, but did not openly comment on her resignation coming before the probe was finished, or about the status of the probe itself, raises the question as to whether the state was really eager to get rid of Ms. Holder-Allen without satisfying the public’s curiosity about the findings or status of the probe itself.

I have followed the case involving the former Chief Magistrate from the time it first unfolded with accusations being levelled against her, to the day she was sent on leave pending an investigation into those accusations, and to the day her resignation was made public, yet I have not heard any official disposition of the investigation. Have you?

She has not been found guilty of anything after four years! Proverbially speaking, she was simply given a bad name and then hanged (professionally) as if to send a chilling message to others!

What are other Guyanese professionals, whether at home or abroad, who are contemplating serving under this PPP/C government to conclude from this shocking and callous treatment of a Guyanese professional, who chose to serve her country in an honourable capacity as a magistrate? Is there another Guyanese professional who would risk making such a sacrifice if that professional has to put up with the type of nasty and vindictive politics that permeates the civil and public service domains in Guyana?

I have written ad nauseam about the treatment meted out to the former Justice Claudette Singh, who eventually resigned her judicial post and reportedly has taken up a desk job in the Office of the Attorney-General at a time when there is a backlog of criminal cases in a bogged down judicial system. Politics certainly trumps professionalism in Guyana!

Ms. Holder-Allen’s quitting her job under a cloud of suspicion and the public not knowing the facts, meanwhile, reminds me of the polygraph testing of the CANU officers, nine of whom were fired for failing to explain to President Bharrat Jagdeo why they failed the tests. Up to now, other than the people administering the tests and President Jagdeo, the public does not know what specifically the officers were asked and what answers they gave, but the President would have the public believe these nine men were guilty. But guilty of what?

If it was corruption-related, why did the President, instead of the justice system, make the final decision? Is the fate of public/civil servants’ jobs now being quietly determined by the state, without adequate or proper defence by the defendants/victims?

Another point of major concern that I previously addressed in the letters columns is the fact that the (acting) Chancellor is also the Chairman of the Judicial Service Commission. Maybe it is constitutional, but since the Chancellor sets the agenda and tone of hearings, it gives him an unfair advantage over subordinate judges and magistrates who are subjects of hearings, because he has a powerful voice, a powerful deciding vote, and can help determine the fate of any subordinate judicial officer with a grievance before the JSC, especially if the issue at hand has personal or work-related undertones but has an artfully contrived mask of charges of professional misconduct!

Because of the ongoing pervasive intrusion of partisan politics into civil and public service bodies in Guyana, the Judicial Service Commission, or any of the service commissions for that matter, should never have chairpersons who are actively employed in those respective fields.

Mr. Editor, when concerned Guyanese call for judicial reforms, the call includes an end to politics in the judicial process, and an end to the delay in the hearing of court cases against criminals and suspects.
After all, justice delayed is justice denied!

But if the former Chief Magistrate’s four-year wait for closure to her case is any gauge of how reforms are going, then it exposes the people responsible for administering justice as being guilty of denying suspects their rights, and raises the question as to whether these administrators and facilitators of justice need to be reformed first before the system can be effectively reformed.

Emile Mervin

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