The moment that led to my rethink of Justice Chang’s learning

Feb 27, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

President Granger has now joined a long list of learned Guyanese, both in and outside of legal training to voice disagreement with Justice Chang’s judicial judgements. The President has disagreed with Chang’s decision to outlaw the parliamentary status of two Technocrat Ministers. But it was a certain aspect of Mr. Granger’s observation that I find very valuable.
The President used the adjective, “regrettable” to describe Chang’s consideration of the case while he was on retirement leave.
For me, there is a valued moral and administrative difference between routine leave and end of office leave. In the case of the former, you are temporarily off the job. You are coming back. You are an essential part of the organization. Simply put – you are on vacation. A hospital or a newspaper or the police force is a very complex institution. The head of such a type of organization would never sever contact when he/she is on annual vacation.
End of contract leave or retirement leave is a different game altogether. You have reached the end of your official and legal tenure at the institution. That is what retirement leave symbolizes. Retirement leave is of the goodbye type. Legally you are still the head because the end of the tenure comes when the retirement leave ends but for most people, they begin the disassociation process during the enjoyment of the end of contract leave.
I cannot think of a Board of a Company discussing future strategies with the CEO who is on retirement leave rather than with his successor. It makes no sense because the acting CEO will soon be in charge and the Board has to start the baptism of the new CEO as early as possible.
It is against this background that I agree with President Granger. Why did Mr. Chang want to give judgement on two issues rather than just enjoy his leave and let his successors do their job? While I agree with the President, I am not surprised at Justice Chang’s behaviour. I had had cause to write in my columns on two intriguing pathways of Justice Chang. And the occasions were many when I penned my views on these two pathways. I am doing so again.
First, I told him to his face on the corridor of the High Court in front of Mr. Christopher Ram that I knew that he wrote President Jagdeo to get the President to review a decision of the GRA in his request for renewal of his duty free letter. I held the view then, and still do, that the Chief Justice should not have done that. It blurs the line in the separation of powers.
Secondly, Justice Chang created legal history with a writ that involves me. In the history of this country, and perhaps the modern world, a libel writ is not likely to be heard within 12 months of filing. In the case of the Jagdeo libel against me and this newspaper, the writ was filed in September 2010 and the court began hearing testimony in July of 2011. That is a record for Guyana; maybe the world.
I am not a lawyer but I believe the educated lay person can understand the law and come to definitive conclusions on judicial decisions. And both lawyers and lay people have been in constant disagreements with several of Mr. Chang’s rulings which, to say the least, are controversial.
UG lecturer, Sherwood Lowe, quoted from the Constitution and the laws to show where Justice Chang seriously misinterpreted the meaning of words when he ruled that the two Ministers cannot sit in the National Assembly. It was a good treatise.
Christopher Ram to my mind literally demolished the basis on which the Chief Justice ruled that the two-term presidential limit was unconstitutional. That is a sound rebuttal to me using extensive quotes from the Constitution
I now come to the moment where I lost all confidence in the Chief Justice. And here I am repeating the story maybe for the sixth time in my columns. Justice Chang decided that the Minister of Local Government did not have the legal power to appoint Carol Sooba as Town Clerk. My undying belief which no lawyer can convince me to the contrary is that there and then Sooba’s appointment came to an end. But no, this did not happen.
Mr. Chang stipulated that Sooba can remain as de facto though not de jure Town Clerk. That was an immensely flawed judgement which no one in the world should accept. From thereon, the Chief Justice for me had gone in questionable directions.

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