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Chancellor and Chief Justice: Women under siege

Jun 30, 2022 Letters

Dear Editor,

I heard it from solid sources before, but kept my thoughts to myself on the confirmation of two females functioning in acting capacities at the most senior levels in Guyana’s judiciary. Though I have written to highlight the embarrassment from delay, it was not with any specific insight that more was in store, and it had to do with tilting the composition of the topmost local bench to the government’s liking.
Longstanding circumstances confirm that the Chancellor and the Chief Justice have been reduced to actors on Guyana’s political stage. Some might say ‘pawns’ is the better word. I first heard of the visions of PPP Government leaders, and I said that this can’t be. It is slick to name one only, and name another viewed as more favourable, as in a guaranteed vote, at those heights, when push comes to shove, and to hell with all the solemn and fancy talk with a straight face about judicial wisdom, precedents, common law, and so forth. With due regard to the man waiting in the wings (and it is a man), I would be so bold as to label that ethnic balancing, and not ethnic cleaning, as some are sure to holler. But if and when we speak of the independence of the judiciary and we (the PPP Government) can only be comfortable with those who adjudicate in its favour, then we really shouldn’t be speaking about things, such as independence, a separate arm of government, and make speeches about vaunted judicial neutrality and integrity.
To cut to the quick, and call a skunk a skunk, I see it as court packing and part of the continuum in the ongoing quest for total control of the major arteries of this society. Much of the media has been so transformed, the Guyana Police Force is not looked upon any differently, the professional public service is weeded out, then replanted with party hacks and ethnic loyalists, and now the judiciary is aimed at, with the same endgame in mind. I am still to locate the fiction of checks and balances that is touted by charlatans and quacks doing advance legwork for the PPP Government around these parts.
If I may digress a moment, a Guyanese female is tipped to lead the judiciary in Belize. I wonder how well she would have fared here, if still toiling in the realms of jurisprudence domestically. When the Government of the day, any government in any season, fears the judiciary, then it is either we have a runaway rogue judiciary that is a law unto itself; or one that does possess the rarified judicial skill, sagacity, and temper that are so lacking today, but which also alarms in the little pockets that such appears. When the Executive arm of Government is so frightened of a single judicial presence in a senior capacity, then it is not a confident government, it is not an astute government, and it just might not be an ethically inclined government.
As one increasingly outspoken newer civil society group has pointed out, that would only be a temporary setback, as there are escalation/appeal channels available. It would not look well for a jurist pushing a particular bias, with scant regard for facts and circumstances, and the law, to be reversed, or exposed, repeatedly at the highest court. My position would be to hand the offending female judge the confirmation rope, and let her hang herself, if that is where matters lead. There is the added advantage of the PPP Government looking mature, sensitive, and politically smart in the process. Devoid of discriminatory impulses, too.

Sincerely,
GHK Lall

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