Latest update January 10th, 2025 5:00 AM
Latest News
- Jagdeo-led PPP supported tax waivers to Exxon without seeing terms of oil contract
- President stomps Nandlall’s plan to appeal $24M awarded to Quindon Bacchus’ family
- More than 46,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war, officials say
- Benn flags citizens lax approach to fire safety
- Chinese man missing after falling off new harbour bridge
Ralph Ramkarran will never apologize to inferior quality
Dear Editor,
It would seem to me, Mr. Harris that the Kaieteur News has set out to embarrass one of the most gifted lawyers and one of the most gifted politicians this country has produced. I refer to Senior Counsel, Ralph Ramkarran. How else do you explain that last Saturday, you carried Mr. Ramkarran’s legal warning to you to retract some sections of one of Mr. Freddie Kissoon’s column, then the very next day, you counteract that effect by carrying Kissoon’s version. Then in the most unsavoury way, accused Senior Counsel at “attempts at dishonesty.”
It is clear as day that your star columnist threatened you with withdrawal of labour and you cowered to save your dying circulation. There was a time when your tabloid warrior ruled the seas. Every PPP mistake you turned into bold headlines. Time has caught up with you. The Guyana Times has replaced you as numero uno. Every mistake of the corrupt, incompetent, Coalition Government, the Guyana Times exposes and you are left behind. Your star columnist is all you have left so you submit to his threats. We are well aware that Kissoon threatened to leave the Kaieteur News if you didn’t carry his version and which was just mediocre rambling.
There are two issues involved here of which the Kaieteur News cannot comprehend. The first one is a valid mistake in which Senior Counsel got two paragraphs in Kissoon’s column mistaken. For that Kissoon is demanding an apology from Senior Counsel. Does Mr. Kissoon know who he is dealing with? He should know his place in the scheme of things. Ralph Ramkarran would never apologize to inferior quality. It is beyond Kissoon’s wildest expectation to think Senior Counsel would grant him the respect he so graves.
The second issue is Mr. Kissoon’s silly contention that in his legal letter to you Mr. Harris, Senior Counsel did not mention the nisi orders of the court. He was on valid ground not to. The orders were paper notices for purpose of court records. They carried no jurisdictional authority. The two orders of Justice Pattterson served to notify the university that it could be compelled to reinstate Dr. Kirton. They did not order his reinstatement. Senior was in his right to notify the university to ignore them.
Kissoon is holding on to what he is ignorant of – law. At the time he was guided by Anil Nandlall and Khemraj Ramjattan. A call to Mr. Nandlall over the weekend revealed that though he would not deny writing the university he has no recollection of so doing. He also went on to state that he does not wish to get involved in the controversy since he has the greatest respect for Ramkarran and none for Kissoon.
Mr Khemraj Ramjattan did pen an open disagreement at the time (2005) with the advice Senior Counsel gave the University. His letter was more political than legally argumentative. It was designed to criticize Mr. Ramkarran not for his legal ability but his politics because at the time, Ralph Ramkarran was the most senior and admired politician in the PPP despite Mr. Jagdeo being president.
The Kaieteur News sought over the weekend the views of Roysdale Forde on the meaning of the nisi order. Couldn’t the paper search on better grounds? This is the lawyer who lost the Jagdeo two terms limits case in both the High Court and the Court of Appeal and no doubt will lose it in the CCJ.
Finally, Kissoon documents a twenty year period of disagreement with Senior Counsel. He mentioned that Senior Counsel sued the paper and to stop the law suit, Senior Counsel wrote the apology himself. This is standard practice in the withdrawal of libel writs which Kissoon is ignorant of. A litigant in agreeing to drop the case would opt to write the apology just to make sure it conforms to what is required. Kissoon also stated that Senior Counsel wanted Mr. Glen Lall to fire him, Kissoon. It is the other way around.
Senior Counsel spoke to Mr. Lall about a glaring libelous opinion in one of Kissoon’s column. It was Mr. Lall who expressed regrets to Senior Counsel of retaining Kissoon and made the decision to fire him. That was not a request of Senior Counsel. For the record, Ralph Ramkarran did not request Glen Lall to dismiss Freddie Kissoon. Mr. Ramkarran would never stoop to that level because Kissoon was never important in his book.
T. Karran
Similar Articles
THE BLUNT OF THE DAY
Sports
Features/Columnists
The unconscionable terms of the PSA establish a case for renegotiation
The unconscionable terms, The unconscionable terms Peeping Tom… Kaieteur News- The Production Sharing Agreement (PSA)... more
Forget Begging Rich Nations: Caribbean Countries Should Act to Save Themselves
By Sir Ronald Sanders Kaieteur News- It has long been evident that the world’s richest nations, especially those responsible... more
Weekend Cartoon
