This country was a farce in 2014

Jan 04, 2015 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

If and when I write my memoirs, I would definitely say that one of the most irritating moments in my life as a human rights activist was when Chief Justice Ian Chang last year ruled that Carol Sooba’s position as Town Clerk was not legally valid but she can remain as Town Clerk.
I am still dizzy at that decision. It defies the logic of human nature that has held civilization together for thousands of years. In giving his decision, Justice Chang wrote that the plaintiff, Royston King, did not challenge Sooba’s authority as Town Clerk, but the Minister’s legal jurisdiction to appoint her. Therefore Sooba could remain as Town Clerk, but the Minister had no legal authority to offer her the position. Since April, Ms. Sooba has continued as the Town Clerk.
If anything made Guyana a farce in 2014, it was this decision. So profound was this farce on my psychology, that I am in doubt about the purpose of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). I never thought I could have a negative feeling about Caribbean integration, but I confess to the Guyanese public that I do after 2014.
Maybe it is best in the interest of justice that the Privy Council in London remains the final court for the CARICOM nations. What frightens me about the CCJ is that the judges come from within the CARICOM family. I will close my eyes this very moment and endorse the CCJ if the system allows for judges outside of CARICOM countries.
The cold reality for me is that I have seen too many injustices, mediocrities, improprieties, puerilities and scurrilities in our judicial system in 2014, to cause me not to have faith in the CCJ. I witnessed a situation in our courts where a junior lawyer told a judge in December 2014 that an appeal to be filed in March 2014 could not have taken place because for the past nine months he could not secure the time of the senior lawyer to discuss the appeal. But the lawyer was working in the court system since March 2014.
Much more incredible mysteries took place in our judicial system last year and the more we highlight them, the more we see a country that has sunk deep into the abyss of insanity. When you see the enormous types of bail magistrates put on people accused of misdemeanors and light criminal offences in 2014, then an analyst from another country can conclude that this is a super-rich country where a carpenter or labourer can easily find $200,000 (that would be $1000 American) to post bail.
Even the magistrate’s salary may not be $200,000. In a poor country like Guyana, why are magistrates imposing such high bail? The answer is simple. The country is a farce, so farcical things are the order of the day.
It came as no surprise to political observers of Guyana’s political sociology that as 2014 was about to close, a magistrate openly used words like bugger and sk..t and f..k to chastise a litigant. This was my personal irony. I write often about the mistreatment of poor people by Guyana’s magistrates, but this cuss-down magistrate was the one I liked. I liked him because he was candid and honest. He knew that the magistracy is out of control so, so he went out of control. Obviously he said to himself when in Rome do as the Romans do.
Equally farcical in 2014 was the Parliament and the electoral system. A minority government ruled in a manner strongly indicative of a landslide majority. Then when the Parliament invoked its constitutional rights, the minority president suspended it. If the judicial and parliamentary systems in a country are broken, then surely that land cannot be anything but a farce.
2014 closed with one of the biggest masquerades in the history of Guyana. Khurshid Sattaur said Glenn Lall threatened him. The DPP charged Lall. The same DPP listened to the dangerously diseased tape of the Attorney-General and concluded that there was nothing in the tape that would allow for Nandlall to be charged.
In 2014, Guyana belonged to Chief Justice Chang and the Director of Public Prosecutions, Mrs. Shalimar Ali-Hack. These were two incredible Guyanese who made two incredible legal decisions. One ruled that a city official can hold onto her office even though no one knows who appointed her, since the Minister of Local Government didn’t have the authority to so do. The other ruled that a threat is not a threat unless you say it directly to another person. Welcome to the land of the farce!

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