The rule of law in Guyana

Jun 08, 2023 Letters

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Dear Editor,

In a democracy, the three branches of government the Executive, the Legislative and the Judicial branches MUST be kept separate, to ensure that the checks and balances necessary to maintain a healthy democracy, is maintained.

With the 1980 Burnham constitution, making the then politicized Guyana Appeal Court the highest legal decision-making entity of Guyana, all pretense that Guyana had any semblance to the rule of law, which it enjoyed as a British Colony, disappeared.

The Judges were appointed and promoted and their remuneration, including their duty-free entitlements etc. set by the political ruling entity i.e. the executive; so to all intents and purpose, their method of appointment and their remuneration put them squarely under the influence of the political Executive ruling even now.

In such a scenario, there could not possibly be an independent Judicial branch of Government. In addition when Guyana was changed by the British from having elections based on the Constituent type elections to the Proportional Representation method where a party and not individuals in a party are running for legislative positions, it changed something fundamentally opposed to keeping the three arms of government separate, in the case of the Burnham government one was even required to offer one’s resignation before accepting being placed on the party’s national list by the leader, thus the person’s first loyalty was to his Party, and in Burnham’s government the Party was paramount.

So everyone in Parliament, both the ruling Party and opposition Party the members are loyal only to the party which put them there; there are no individuals in our parliament responsible to the people, only representatives of one party or the other, which they were required to support unquestionably. Despite numerous attempts at constitutional reform not much has changed.

From the members of Parliament, who were sitting there, compliments of their party leaders’ SELECTION, the executive members, i.e. the Ministers, are selected.  In such a scenario there can clearly be no separation of power between the legislative branch of government, or the Executive branch. And also lays the foundation for the selection of ministers with no competence whatsoever, the only criteria of selection being their loyalty to their parties and its leaders.

This laid the foundation of the Burnham dictatorship from 1966 to 1992. Which continues to this day. Because on achieving power in 1992, no attempt was made by the PPP to change anything.

This situation continued until 2005 when something important happened, there was established a Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ)and Guyana became a member in that year. It has changed everything for us, and has at least, to some extent, diminished the executive branch from controlling our judiciary.

Years ago Sir Fenton Ramsahoye had told me that he would never practice law here, since the Guyana legal system is perverse due to the fact that the Appeal Court of Guyana was the final court Guyanese had access to in search of justice and it was controlled by the executive, his comparison was Trinidad and Tobago where the Trinidadians had access to the Privy council in England and since the Privy Law Lords had no compunction of reversing any and all poor rulings made by the Trinidadian Judges, they even criticized them and the poor or perverse judgements rendered by them, this was the same for most if not all of the English speaking Caribbean which continued to use the Privy council. And so for them, the rule of law survived.

For two decades according to Ramsahoye, we have bred a legal system more dependent on bribery and cronyism than by practising the rule of law, and it had rendered justice in Guyana unobtainable with a weak judiciary and jurisprudence. After the 2020, elections for six months, we saw that the CCJ played a very important part in halting, what can only be described as an attempted coup in Guyana.

The rule of law is important Editor, VERY important, I recall that Lord Paddy Ashdown the British Politician put in charge of introducing democracy in Bosnia and Hercegovina after the civil war there, in an interview with Reuters said that; we made a huge mistake here, we thought that democracy came first and we held as many elections as possible, but nothing changed, because Democracy does not come first, the rule of law comes first, without it, you can’t have a democracy or decent politics or decent business, nothing works.

And so because of the CCJ and our fearless Chief Justice Roxane George Wiltshire(acting),the Rule of Law has finally emerged in Guyana, and this is what the Guyanese people and the government, to its chagrin, are seeing now. Astonishingly Justice George Wiltshire has been ACTING as chief justice since 2017!! In fact, since the then Chief Justice Desiree Barnard was elevated to Chancellor in 2001!! 22 years ago!! We have not had a substantive Chief Justice in this country! It’s a disgrace!!

And finally, I would like to say to all the judges in Guyana, keep up the good work, what you are doing is the right thing, in helping to restore the Rule of Law in Guyana. To the people of Guyana, I say this, those of you who like me cherish The Rule of Law, must not rest in our efforts to nourish it and make it grow even stronger.

Faithfully,

Tony Vieira

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• British Colony, Executive, judicial, legislative, Tony Vieira

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