Letter to the Sports Editor...CRICKET BOARD MUST WAIT- ACTING CHANCELLOR NOW ILL

Letter to the Sports Editor…CRICKET BOARD MUST WAIT- ACTING CHANCELLOR NOW ILL

Oct 08, 2013 Sports

Dear Editor,

The continuing saga of the cricket board persists whilst the convenient delays continue to keep track with the Guyana Cricket Administration Bill. Back in December 2012, the appellant had attempted to vent his frustration at the inordinate delays in this very simple matter but that has only served to prolong these delays further and these are now occurring in lockstep with the progress of the Cricket Administration Bill.

More than 15 months has elapsed since the Caribbean Court of Justice in June 2012 made certain Orders regarding the matter RAJENDRA SINGH & ROBIN SINGH v THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF GUYANA.

This matter was challenging the Government of Guyana’s (GOG) authority and decision to unilaterally disband the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) and install an Interim Management Committee (IMC). Hereunder is a brief summary of the various approaches to the Courts and the surrounding events over the past 2 years:

Date	Court	Action	Result
23/12/11		MINISTER OF SPORT writes the GCB disbanding the GCB & installing an IMC purportedly under the pretext that the Chief Justice had so stated in his ruling
28/12/11	Supreme Court- Chief Justice	Ex Parte motion by CHETRAM SINGH & LIONEL JAIKARAN(then Trustees of GCB)for an Order or Rule Nisi of Certiorari quashing the Minister’s decision above	CJ ordered that the application be refused on 29/11/11 stating that the claimants had no locus standi because they were representing a body that was a legal non-entity. No written judgment given.
30/12/11	Full Court- Justices Ramlall & Bovell-Drakes)	Ex Parte application was renewed as a fresh hearing by the said 2 Trustees	On25/1/12 this motion was dismissed & an application to appeal to the Court of Appeal was refused stating it had no power to give leave to appeal to the COA.
30/1/12	Court of Appeal	Motion for Leave to appeal the decision of the Full Court and for the application for leave to be treated as the hearing of the substantive appeal for the making of an Order Nisi for a writ of certiorari	Motion dismissed on 14/2/12. No written reasons provided.
3/2/12	Caribbean Court of Justice(CCJ)	The same 2 trustees above applied for special leave to appeal against the Court of Appeal’s judgment to hear any appeal to it in the matter.	CCJ granted special leave to appeal and gave directions leading to the hearing of this appeal.
12/4/12	Caribbean Court of Justice	Application for the substitution of the Applicants(Trustees) by the Appellants RAJENDRA SINGH & ROBIN SINGH in their capacity as authorized representatives of the GCB	CCJ granted leave for such substitution. The standing of the Appellants has not been questioned in these proceedings before this Court.
11/6/12	Caribbean Court of Justice	Appealing the Court of Appeal’s decision	CCJ grants the Appellants an extension of time until 14 days from the delivery of this judgment to file a notice of appeal from the Order of Justice Chang of 29/12/11, providing the Appellants within 7 days of the delivery of this judgment file with the Registrar of the Supreme Court a motion seeking such an extension
15/6/12	Court of Appeal	Appeal against the decision of the CJ filed	No date set yet for hearing
22/6/12		Letter written to Court of Appeal requesting early hearing and expressing the urgency of the matter
18/7/12		Letter sent to the Chancellor’s Chambers requesting an early hearing
19/7/12		Follow up letter sent to Court of Appeal requesting written response on the status of the appeal hearing
23/7/12		Written response received from Court of Appeal stating that the appeal could not now be accommodated and the court was proceeding into recess
2/10/12		Follow up letter sent to the Court of Appeal reminding them that the summer recess was over and again requesting a date for hearing
8/10/12		Letter written to the CCJ apprising them of the continuous delays and seeking their intervention in getting the appeal heard
January 2013		Matter called up in the Court of Appeal but Defence Attorney, Stephen Fraser, filed a motion to squash this matter
April 2013		Chancellor strikes out the motion by Defence Attorney for the Attorney General
June 2013		After hearing the substantive matter, the Ag. Chancellor set aside the date of October 7^th 2013 to provide his decision.

The CCJ in its directional Order had stated, “The seeking of such a public law remedy to prevent alleged unlawful abuse of public powers is of such significance in the light of the Guyana’s constitution that an appeal lies as of right to the Court of Appeal.” In addition, the team of esteemed jurists had further commented that this matter was an urgent one and had quoted in para. 41 of its Order dated June 15^th 2012 “Due to the seriousness of the issues and the urgency of the matter this Court most exceptionally will exercise the powers of………..” This comment regarding the urgency of this matter seems to have been lost on our local court system and we are now left with a supposedly manufactured conundrum where the legislative body is poised to make a decision that will have a serious bearing on matter(s) pending in the judicial system.

This is a serious test to the independence of our judicial and legislative systems. We were advised by the Court of Appeal this morning (Monday October 7) that the Acting Chancellor was sick and even though the decision was ready we would be advised in the future of the date that the decision was going to be delivered.

This is downright outrageous! We view this as a severe breach of natural justice as justice delayed can surely, in this case, be equated to justice denied.

In the meantime, the GOG is rapidly moving ahead to ram through some form of legislation to control cricket administration in Guyana, clearly attempting to subvert and/or override the judicial system, whilst cricket and cricket administration bleeds from these multiple and relentless onslaught against a legal body and its Officers that has been in existence for decades. We are now advised that Parliament will be reconvened on Thursday and the Cricket Bill is on the agenda.

Should legislation be passed allowing control of cricket administration to be government controlled, Guyana risk being ostracized from being a shareholder of the WICB since the ICC holds a similar view as FIFA regarding government intervention in sports. This is clearly not the road that we need to pursue.

Raj Singh – Appellant