The past is being relived

Jan 01, 2017 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The Court is the domain in which to settle legal issues. If there is a dispute as to a legal question, it is to the Court to which one must turn.
It is not for the Executive to assume the role of adjudicator in legal matters. A system of rule of law is based on the Court being allowed to adjudicate legal disputes.
It is not for protests and counter protests to resolve legal disputes.
Anyone, of course, can have an opinion of a legal dispute. It is for that person, once before a Court, to advance those arguments to convince a judge that those arguments are unassailable.
A society which is not based on the rule of law will descend into chaos. Guyana is on the verge of descending into chaos, because the State is assuming a role which is not its proper function.
Right now, people must be concerned about the arbitrariness of government’s action. People are speaking about a creeping dictatorship. There is no creeping dictatorship. The government is a democratically elected government. A challenge to the elections does not mean that the opposition has proven it case. It has not either in the law court or the court of public opinion.
A creeping authoritarianism is, however, engulfing the country. The government is displaying a mindset that it can do as it pleases. There is a real danger to property owners in this country.
If you have a lease for State lands, you had better go and check to determine whether there is evidence that the President, at the time of the granting of that lease, had approved of you being granted that lease. Otherwise, your lease is liable to be deemed to have been improperly granted.
It took the APNU+AFC government eighteen months to realize that a lease issued by the former government did not meet legal requirements. Then on top of this, the APNU+AFC government inexplicably revokes a lease which it claims was never properly issued in the first place?
How can one revoke something that was, in your estimation, never properly issued? And to compound the illogicality of the situation, the lease is revoked not on the grounds of its illegal issue, but in the public interest.
Guyanese will recall all too clearly the dispossession of property which took place under the PNC government “in the public interest.” Ask the Kissoon family, whose properties were taken over by the Burnham government in the “public interest” in the 1970s at 1939 values.
This is not old news. The past is being relived. There was an aborted attempt recently to acquire (the Constitution has been changed to require the payment of compensation for lands compulsorily acquired) private property in the public interest.
So there is a pattern to recent actions, and that pattern resembles things which happened in the past.
Do not for one moment believe that your legal title or transport is safe under this APNU+AFC government. The PNC took away lands which belonged to its friends. It forced others to give up other lands. There are private properties that the PNC gained possession of during the Burnham era, which are now the subject of court actions by the persons seeking to repossess those properties.
Be careful in these times. The PNC is a dangerous party. It has determination to get what it wants, when it wants, and how it wants it. Hold on to your transport closely. Somebody may have an eye on your property and may want it.
If Guyana returns to an authoritarian state, then there is nothing you or I can do to prevent an authoritarian regime from dispossessing you. You may find a letter in the mail saying that your transport, lease or title was improperly issued.
The Court is Guyana’s only salvation. It is the only defence against authoritarianism. Place your faith in the Court. The rule of law will save us all.
Happy New Year and keep close tabs on your property!

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