Poor Doodnauth at the Georgetown Club tonight

Jan 17, 2009 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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The last time I spoke to Doodnauth Singh, the Attorney General who should have resigned ages ago but will finally do so in two weeks time (no tears at all) was at the High Court just months before he became Attorney-General in 2001.
It was clear from our conversation that he was aware that the PPP had squandered a priceless opportunity to make Guyana one of the futuristic models of democracy after what we fought for over three decades. To my surprise, he became Attorney-General.
On reading about his appointment, I felt deeply disturbed. For me, in accepting such a politically partisan job just three years after serving as GECOM’s chairman, showed that he had become a part of the primitive inclinations in the exercise of government and the tribalist political culture that the PPP inherited from the Burnham regime.
The first thought that came to mind was Chancellor Keith Massiah. This was the politics of authoritarianism as we knew in the PNC. In Doodnauth Singh’s selection of AG, the PPP was merely continuing the tragedy of Guyanese politics.
Chancellor Keith Massiah heard the libel appeal of President Desmond Hoyte against the Catholic Standard, increased the award, then left the bench to become Hoyte’s AG. The then Barbadian Chief Justice was furious at what Justice Massiah had done and spoke his mind at this unprecedented departure from Caribbean jurisprudence (using that word in an extended sense).
When Doodnauth Singh became AG after presiding over one of Guyana’s most controversial national elections, it should have brought rebuke from Caricom Heads. Mr. Singh presided over an election, the aftermath of which almost destroyed Guyana.
It was Caricom that intervened to save us for the second time (the first being when Caricom insisted at an emergency meeting in St. Vincent that Mr. Hoyte hold free, open and legitimate national election – see the autobiography of Sir James Mitchell, former PM of St. Vincent for more details of this lovely act of Caricom).
Few Guyanese do not know this, but after the disastrous elections of 1997, it was Dr Yesu Persaud who convincingly persuaded Caricom’s Secretary-General to have Caricom’s intervention.
When President Jagdeo insulted Mr. Persaud at the launching of the Guyana Times newspaper, Mr. Singh should have tendered his resignation the next morning. The dimension of the 1997 elections that was terrible was Mr. Singh’s secret swearing in of Mrs. Jagan as President.
Mr. Singh should not be forgiven for this. In the US, Democratic Party legislators are talking about prosecuting high officials, including Cabinet members, for criminal abuse of power, but the one case that comes to mind for me is this unannounced swearing in of Mrs. Jagan as President of Guyana.
A future non-PPP Government should attempt to prosecute Mr. Singh for this unacceptable decision.
So Mr. Singh became a PPP Minister three years after he performed in a most controversial manner over the 1997 general elections. But how did he do for the eight years that he has served Mr. Jagdeo? Tonight he celebrates 50 years as a lawyer, in of all places, the Georgetown Club (the favourite spot of Henry Jeffrey and Clement Rohee – I will reveal one day to the Guyanese people why the US Embassy refused to renew Rohee’s visitor’s and diplomatic visas).
In the eight years he functioned as a PPP Cabinet, Mr. Singh has been a manifest failure. Those eight years have destroyed the fifty years he will put on display tonight. From 2001 to 2008, can Mr. Singh tell his fancy audience this evening what he has accomplished as Attorney-General.
Law, the legal system and the judiciary remain unchanged the past four decades in this tragic land. The immobilized, anachronistic, elitist, unjust and class-driven legal system in this country militates against the dispensation of justice, democracy and freedoms. This country has one of the world’s most sluggish legal infrastructures.
Mr. Singh is in his seventies and is reported to have thrown in the towel over ill-health. One hopes he is aware that since he was a sprightly man in his fifties, there are court cases that are yet to see the light of day.
I hope that someone at the dinner tonight asks him why he tried to deny bail to Oliver Hinckson by appealing the Magistrate’s decision? Here is a man I respected when I was a teenager growing up. Today, that respect and admiration are gone. I saw him at the ceremony that bestowed Warwick University’s honorary doctorate on Yesu Persaud and at Persaud’s 80th birthday.
I couldn’t bring myself to say hello to him. I didn’t want to. Doodnauth Singh has contributed nothing to the efforts to make this country a better land.

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