Sacking of Magistrate Omeyana Hamilton is a direct assault on young professionals

Mar 28, 2011 Letters

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Dear Editor,
The sacking of Magistrate Omeyana Hamilton is nothing short of a direct attack on young professionals in Guyana.
The Chancellor and the other members of the Judicial Service Commission ought to be ashamed of the manner in which they treated Ms. Hamilton, who has demonstrated that she is prepared to travel the length and breath of Guyana to perform her duties. Therefore, the dismissal of Ms. Hamilton because she used the ferry boat and not the speed boat to travel to Bartica to carry out her duties is nothing short of draconian and discriminatory behaviour. The Chancellor of the Judiciary, Chief Magistrate and the other members of the Judicial Service Commission should be ashamed of this extreme measure taken against one of Guyana’s future pillars.
Their action is unconscionable, insensitive and unsympathetic to the peculiar disposition of Ms. Hamilton, who explained that she suffers severe headache and back spasm if she travels in a speed boat. The Chancellor and the Judicial Service Commission acted in a manner, which indicate that they had preferred to see Ms. Hamilton’s health situation jeopardized and care less about the fact that she was intent on carrying out her duties, by seeking other means of transportation to get to Bartica.
I happen to have been in the same Law Classes with Ms. Hamilton and recognised, very early, that she was going to be one of Guyana’s leading legal professionals. I am therefore, very sadden and hurt by the fact that those in authority would attempt to injure her, now, blossoming career.
This unfortunate situation started with the reason for her being fired was her decision not to travel via speed boat to go to Bartica, it will soon be elevated to accusations of non-performance and other damaging charges intended to tarnish her reputation. This is the nature of the oppression and discrimination that takes place in Guyana, and our youth has become the most vulnerable segment of our society in this cycle.
I find it strange that in a Judicial System, which is burdened with a back log of cases, shortage of magistrates, rife of corruption, and strangled with political interference that the Judicial Service Commission, the Chancellor and Chief Magistrate would take an action that is likely to foster theses unwarranted realities.
Something does not smell right about this case! One might ask, that if these people wanted to discipline Hamilton, for her “speed boat fear” why a lighter penalty wasn’t instituted against her. Why the desire to “cut her down in the prime” of her career?
Is this the kind of treatment young professionals can expect from those in authority? The state of unemployment is already a dreadful one why put another youth on the bread line? Why should this minor matter attract such damning consequence?
Where was the Judicial Service Commission when Carl Singh was appointed by this PPP/C government to function as both acting Chancellor, and Chief Justice simultaneously while Claudette Singh was brushed aside?
They sit and endorsed this assault on the Constitution, and promoted this unethical situation shrouded in political mischief, when this was a matter that demanded strong action.
And wasn’t it this same Commission which acted in collusion with the PPP/C regime to malign and oust Former Chief Magistrate, Juliet Holder-Allen?
How long will we continue to sit back and behave as though discrimination and government excessive and high-handedness is not our collective concern.
I recall, that in those infamous Gajraj/death squads period, a few years ago, a mother was relating to me that when bodies were falling like files she believed that she and her family were immune from the wrath of the regime. However, reality kicked in hard when a few days after the Robb street slaughter, which left about five dead, she was forced to identify the body of her 26-year-old son who was sprayed with bullets and laid dead on the Railway Embankment. Fighting injustice and discrimination must be a mission for all of us, as none is excluded.
I call on the Minister of Culture Youth and Sports, the Guyana Bar Association, Opposition Parties, Civil Society, Youth Organisations, the Religious Society and leaders, Media Association, the University of Guyana Law Society, the University of Guyana Student Society, the Guyana Trades Union Congress, all professional bodies, the Women Lawyers Association, all Women’s Organisations and every other right thinking organisation to denounce this dismissal and call for the swift reinstatement of Ms. Omeyana Hamilton, to do less would be to encourage and promote the emasculation of our young professionals and foster a bleak future for Guyana.
Hamilton’s case is an assault on Guyana’s youth and to remain silent is not an option. It is time for collective action some of us have been silent for too long, it was Abraham Lincoln who posits that; “to sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men”. Martin Luther King Jr. stated “Either we go up together or we go down together. Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness”. Will be remain silent and selfish, when the future of Guyana is openly under attack?
Lurlene Nestor

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