Parliament and the judiciary should put a stop to this idiotic nonsense

Jun 01, 2017 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Since I was a small boy, I heard my father talking about people hiding when they see the marshal coming to serve court papers. That was more than fifty years ago. Since then this asininity goes on. This is what I know, and if it has changed, then can someone please tell me. When the court gives an order, whether injunction or other type of writ, it only becomes effective if the marshal puts it in the hand of the person who the court made the decision against.
I heard this talk since I was small that when people run away, the order cannot be served, thus the person whom the court wants to have the order defeats the purpose of the court decision. I have grown up and I see it today. Once the marshal turns up, people disappear and the next thing you hear is the talk that it has not been served. I have seen such action umpteen times. And it has happened in my life and you are not going to believe who encouraged that nonsense.
In the mid-nineties, I applied for an injunction to stop UG from admitting law applicants until same came in front of the Board of the Faculty of Social Sciences of which I was a member. This was after I received complaints from the father of a crying applicant who contended that her friend at The Bishops’ High School got lower grades than her yet she was accepted. I never saw that year’s applications in front of the Board. I was granted the injunction.
I went to UG with the marshal to serve the writ on the then Head of the Law Department, Calvin Eversley. Mr. Eversley saw us coming and went into another office and locked himself away. You are not going to believe this, but it was the former Chancellor, Aubrey Bishop (who was a law professor at UG at the time) who went into Mr. Eversley’s office and instructed the secretary not to receive the writ.
From that day, I never spoke to him again. I was born in the yard in which he lived in Wortmanville. My parents were tenants of his parents. He knew my siblings well, but I never spoke to Aubrey Bishop from that day onwards. Here was a former Chancellor and to think of all people, such a person trying to defeat the workings of the judicial system.
The secretary refused to accept the writ. We went back to Georgetown. Anil Nandlall was my lawyer (really did like Anil in those days) and he insisted that the marshal put the writ on the desk in front of the secretary. He did that. Eversley turned up in court on the day of the case.
What idiotic nonsense this county puts up with that unless you serve the writ on the person and unless the person takes the writ into his/her hand, then the court order cannot be acted upon. So you block my driveway. I got an injunction. You heard that. You go out of the country for six months and I cannot use my driveway. Why can’t I give the writ to your spouse or one of your children when I am at your gate?
What is wrong with giving the writ to the secretary of the CEO? She cannot refuse it. If she does then she should be arrested. That is a court order, and it is such an important document that she must inform her boss that the court has a paper for him after she collected it. What happens if you ring the bell, the man and his wife peep out, see the marshal and decide not to collect the document? Is that how the law operates? If that is the procedure then the judiciary and Parliament must bring a stop to it immediately.
One marshal told me that he doesn’t play. Once he sees the person and the person insults him and refuses to take the document, he puts it on the ground in front of the person and leaves. He then reports to his superior what happened. A marshal should not be insulted when acting as a messenger for the court. It should be a criminal offence.
As I observed above, I grew up knowing that the person has to receive the writ in his/her hand. I would like to know if the law allows for the marshal to drop it off at your office or workplace or deliver it to next of kin. In a civilized society that should be the norm. Is Guyana a civilized society?

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Parliament and the judiciary should put a stop to this idiotic nonsense

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