President should convene tribunal to investigate McCoy

Oct 01, 2009 News

… says Rights of the Child Commissioner

The Speaker of the National Assembly should ask President Bharrat Jagdeo to convene a tribunal to investigate allegations that Rights of the Child Commissioner, Kwame McCoy, is recorded soliciting sexual favours from a 15-year-old boy, says McCoy’s fellow Commissioner, Vidyaratha Kissoon.

Rights of the Child Commissioner Vidyaratha Kissoon holds up a placard calling for speedy enactment of the Sexual Offences Law during a protest outside Office of the President recently.

Further, Kissoon suggests that McCoy should recuse himself from any of the activities of the Commission until such time as the tribunal makes its findings available.

The Rights of the Child Commission is a constitutional body that is mandated to report directly to the National Assembly. Since the members of the Commission were sworn in on May 8, no meeting has been called to elect a chairperson, and as such the Commission is currently now not functioning.

A further bugbear is the fact that the constitution stipulates that the Secretariat for the Human Rights Commission will serve as the secretariat for the Rights of the Child, Indigenous, and the Gender Equality Commissions, but there is no Human Rights Commission as yet.

Kissoon is the first Commissioner to go public about the allegations surrounding McCoy, even though he says he has not heard the tape and has no interest in listening to it, since he cannot make a judgement as to whether the person on the tape is indeed that of McCoy.

Kissoon is a well know civil society activist and has been joining a protest in front of the Office of the President for the last four months to raise awareness about the abuse of children.

Writing on his blog (churchroadman.blogspot.com), Kissoon said that he would expect that any of the commissioners on the rights various rights commissions would step aside, if subject to any allegations of misbehaviour or misdemeanour.

“This includes me, much as it would go against my sense of justice,” Kissoon writes.

He quotes Article 225 of the Constitution, which provides for the removal of any commissioner on any of the four rights Commissions.

“The Constitution suggests that the Speaker of the National Assembly , who is the prescribed authority (Article 212 Y (4) ), can request of the President that the removal of the officer be investigated, following which a tribunal is established from within the Judicial Services Commission who could then investigate and make a recommendation,” Kissoon states.

He also suggests that those who are looking into the best interests of the child whose voice is supposed to be on the tape, ensure that the Child Care and Protection Agency meet with the child and the parents to ensure that the child is safe and at school.

He also feels that the tape and references to the child’s birth date should stop being circulated since it is harmful to continue to further expose the child.

Regarding McCoy, Kissoon says his gut reaction is that it is unfair that someone’s life and work could be disrupted by allegations made against them which could take a long time to be investigated.

However, he writes that he is “coming around to accepting that if one accepts any public office, then implicit in this acceptance is that one should be prepared to step aside if allegations are to be investigated.”

President Jagdeo has promised to look into the allegations against McCoy, who is the second most senior functionary within the Press and Publicity Unit in the Presidential Secretariat.