CCJ roasts Nandlall

Oct 20, 2022 News

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– For prematurely releasing embargoed ruling in election petition case on Facebook

Kaieteur News – The Caribbean Court of Justice on Wednesday lambasted Attorney General Anil Nandlall SC over his premature release of the embargoed decision of the court in the election petition case via his Facebook page Tuesday evening.

The CCJ routinely provides an advanced copy of its decisions to Lawyers for both sides. In this case, all of the Attorneys in the matter were provided with an advanced copy of the Court’s decision that they were asked not to share. However, on Tuesday hours before the decision was delivered by the CCJ it was publicised on the Facebook Page of the Attorney General.

The post disclosed that the “CCJ upholds our submissions in Petition No.99: Court of Appeal decision reversed…the people won again.”

Following the delivery of the ruling, the CCJ dealt condignly with the Attorney General for publicising the information from the ruling before its official release. The issue, the court said has put it in a position to consider the possibility of barring Guyana from receiving certain decisions in advance. This idea was floated by Justice Jacob Witt.

“This is totally unacceptable and any further action of the court will be contemplated. For example, is it possible in cases like this to send an advanced copy in Guyana. I mean this is really serious business and we cannot have it and this is something we will discuss in a broader form,” Justice Witt said.

He noted that the Facebook post created the impression that the Attorney General had privileged access to information from the CCJ. He said going forward; the Court will have to determine how it treats with the release of draft judgments to parties involved in the various cases before the Court.

The Attorney General was notably not present during the hearing but the Solicitor General, Nigel Hawke apologised to the Court, saying that it was a mistake by an Administrator of the Attorney General’s Facebook page and there was no attempt to bring the Court into disrepute.

“Your Honours, first we would like to place our sincere apology to the members of the Court and to our colleagues. But what transpired as I have instructed, and I should say that the honorable Attorney General was travelling on Government’s business to Barbados and, I am instructed that an unauthorized note, the judgment wasn’t published, unauthorized note was published on his facebook page,” the Solicitor General explained.

According to the Solicitor General, when the grave error was detected, the post was immediately removed. One of the Opposition’s lawyers, Selwyn Pieters, said Mr Nandlall’s apology was not accepted as it has injured the image of the court. “What that premature release did- it was shared all over the Internet- what it did was put the administration of justice into disrepute because if Your Honours staff read the comments, it almost seem like the Attorney General had some privy,” said Pieters who practices in Canada.

Justice Maureen Rajnauth-Lee said, “apart from the apology and all those other things that I have heard today, I am very, very concerned about the impact of the integrity of the court and I would like Counsel here to come up with something that will remedy that impact,” she said.

The CCJ bench said that it therefore expected the Attorney General to apologise publicly on his Facebook page, based on a commitment by  Hawke. In a statement Shadow Attorney General, Roysdale Forde SC, said the CCJ expressed its immense displeasure at the grave breach of confidentiality reposed by the Court in the Attorney General. “The Court frowned on the improper release of the judgment by the Attorney General in breach of the specific confidentiality protocols governing the receipt of the said Judgment by Counsel for the parties. The Court indicated that the conduct of the Attorney General was such that can bring the CCJ into disrepute and that it was going to engage in further consideration of the misconduct of the Attorney General,” Forde noted.

Meanwhile, given the undertaking, Nandlall issued the apology moments after the judgment was delivered. He said: “Yesterday, while I am overseas on official Government business, an administrator of my Facebook page, unauthorisedly, made a post which disclosed some contents of an advanced confidential copy of the judgment of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) in the case of Attorney General v Monica Thomas et al [2022] CCJ 15 (AJ) GY.  That judgment was sent by the CCJ,  to all Attorneys-at-Law in that case. As soon as this post was brought to my attention, it was removed.  I hereby offer to the CCJ my sincerest apologies for this grave error. Absolutely no disrespect or ill-motive inspired, was intended, or was connected with this post.”

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