Guyana – more of men, less of laws

May 22, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News – It was America’s second president and Founding Father, John Adams who spoke of a “government of laws and not men.”  Though centuries old, it remains the ideal of ideals. For when the majesty of the law takes precedence over the machinations of calculating men, then there could be the hope, if not the cherished experience and reality, of a just society.  Not too long ago, former Democratic Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, flourished thunderously that “We’re a nation of laws, and not of men and women.”  Hear, hear! Echoes of John Adams and a reminder of the dominance of the law that should be under all circumstances, that which conquers all comers.  It is on occasions like these that I am one proud American.  But only when there is consistency in its application, through Sturm and drang, in that all other considerations occupy a distant second place are ground into dust.

As a Guyanese, I acknowledge that there is a reservoir of law, a reasonably spacious and growing one.  But where are the men, of what can be said about them?  Where are the men with all the power in their hands to make the law light up our world and be a delight to all citizens?  We are about to embark on the serious and draining business of Constitutional Reform, but what degree of reformations to existing law is to be expected out of that enterprise?  More pointedly, where is the caliber of men and women in government and civil society, properly reformed to fight for laws that benefit all citizens not just in concept and on paper?  But in principled application for the greatest good?  Frankly, I have all but given up on the law when the men and women of the PPP Government are involved.  Though difficult, at times, I still hold onto the tendrils of the law when the courageous and thankless efforts of a few Guyanese men and women in civil society keep the flame burning.  The little faith left in the law here is restored to its precarious perch.

We are not short of laws, with small hills of paper to testify to their noble existence.  On paper, other than for newly discovered loopholes [lacunae], the noble, what should be fair because it is on the merits and balanced, is there? The conflict is in the sweeping application of the laws, the adherence to them, and the determination to deliver beyond the logic and the results of jurisprudential enlightenment.  The trouble is when confidence men overpower and replace the convictions of the law.  When confidence men takeover, authentic confidence loses its pervasiveness and drops out of heart and out of sight.  The crisis is when unruly men and women bent on getting their way profane the law by putting rank political considerations before the rights of the people, now routinely violated.  When the basis of the law is used to develop constructive polices, then the regulations and rules that follow, the procedures that arise, will be good in their visions. What desecrates law and its derivations (rules and regs) are those instances that register complete contempt for the cleanest, clearest, and fairest implementation (and enforcement) of them all, without fear, without favor.  And, to which I add, without bias and bigotry, and what is absent of partisanship and prejudice.

Guyanese are living with an unwanted ringside seat relative to a series of developments devoted to denuding the substances of collective bargaining agreements.  What is it then that reigns supreme?  Is it the law being paid the homage that is due because of its primacy of place? Or has it not been subject to the caprices and artifices of men and women reduced to thoughtlessness and cleverness via maneuvers that put all those involved to shame?  Perhaps, the Hon Attorney General, a commanding Field Marshall of the law no less, would care to have his say on these assertions of mine.  My hope is that this learned man of the law in Guyana, and this sometimes-slippery brother of mine, would see an invitation and not any condemnation, a caution and not some comparison.  Proceeding briskly along, there is that blinding violation of law and procedure in the handiwork of the national tender board, and then the shamelessly convenient toothlessness, the joyful self-inflicted worthlessness, of the Public Procurement Commission.  What do Guyanese have there?  An instance of the law triumphing over the whims and schemes of men (and women)?  Or, of the manipulations of men and women of the planks provided by the law to walk downhill and straight into hell?  They and others can claim process and compliance that were less than perfect.  But then who is practicing still more deceptions?  It is men.  Who is tampering with deepest confidence, when it is irrefutable that the law has been flagrantly violated.  And to pile insult upon injury, intelligence is then cunningly subverted.  It is men.

How we love to flare dazzlingly in Guyana about the law and its glory.  Reality steps in quickly and identify the men and women who make a mockery of it all.  We can spout all the persuasive case law, summon the powerful precedents, and resonate with inspiring citations.  But what of the men in this country to make the law come alive with what represents respect for the law, submission to it?  What men then?

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