The CCJ’s cross-dressing case reflects how sadistic this nation is..

Nov 22, 2018 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Who is the man that brought the presidential term limit case to three courts – High Court, Court of Appeal and CCJ? When the Kaieteur News investigated him it was obvious to the naked eyes that this guy was in no position to finance three court cases.
I was on the High Court balcony chatting with attorneys Shawn Allicock and Roysdale Forde. Allicock was the lawyer who argued the case on behalf of the citizen, Cedric Richardson, who filed the writ. Allicock jokingly said to Forde that he, Forde, is a wealthy lawyer, an assertion Forde rejected.
I then asked Allicock how much he was paid for the term limit case. He didn’t give a specific figure but said his fee was not a bad number. Allicock was one of two lawyers, the other being Emily Dodson.
Where did a poor man, living in a poor dwelling get the enormous sums to take a case to three levels of judicial hearing? The answer is obvious to even a moron. Richardson merely signed the affidavit. Wealthy people paid the lawyers. Four LGBT persons lost their cross-dressing case in the High Court and Court of Appeal but won it in the CCJ.
Like Cedric Richardson, these four litigants are ordinary folks with no high income. Where did they get the money from? Unlike the situation in the Richardson scenario, there was no mystery here. The LGBT group SASOD financed the three stages of litigation with a senior counsel from the Caribbean arguing the CCJ appeal.
The executives of SASOD are ordinary working class folks but they are bankrolled by certain embassies in Guyana. In fact one of these embassies gives a monthly stipend to SASOD to finance their operations, including their official office.
SASOD won its cross dressing case because it had money. Of course one should not be annoyed with SASOD because it has money. It used its funds to fight what it believed was an injustice done to its members. What is wrong with that? The answer is nothing.
There are countless violations stemming from archaic laws that have been going on in this county since Independence, the victims of which are mainly folks from the poorer strata of society. They have no funds to start litigation.
There are countless illegal brutalities perpetrated against poor people in Guyana but the sadism continues because these folks do not have money to pay lawyers and this country has a legal community that hardly shows interest in fighting court matters pro bono for working class people who cannot pay. Nigel Hughes is an admirable and outstanding exception here.
Let’s take two examples and as you read on bear in mind that if there was money available as in the SASOD situation justice would have been long served.
There is a rule preventing sand truck owners from plying their trade in Georgetown after 6 AM. The reasoning behind this is that these vehicles need to be off the road at rush hour. But there is no such law against container trucks which are a far more dangerous presence during peak hours.
There is no active sand truckers’ association and even if there was, does it have money to finance lawyers’ fees? So these small business people have to get up at an uncivilized hour, collect their sand, drive down the highways at an uncivilized hour and reach the capital before sun rise. In the meantime, container-trucks are all over the place at all times of the day and night.
The other example is about bicycle owners. I did a column (Wednesday, November 7, 2018 “Understanding the thinking of some Guyanese police officers”) on the huge number of bicycles at the police stations around Georgetown seized by traffic ranks.
Under the law, there are about two dozen traffic offences that are “ticketable.” You are stopped, issued with a ticket and it is up to you to pay the fine. The same rule applies to cycle riders. No bell carries a ticket.
What Corporal De Lima of East La Penitence station told me is that the cycles are lodged at the station and on producing the court receipt, the cycles are returned. It turns out that hundreds of such owners do not bother to pay the fine with the result that all the Georgetown stations have an enormous amount of bicycles.
But what the police are doing is illegal. When I did the column, a few lawyers told me that it is a violation of the cyclist’s right to private property. The police cannot retain your property for a “ticketable” offence. Maybe the poor in Guyana are fated to suffer.

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