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‘Guyanese Critic’ ordered to pay Mohameds $22M judgment for defamation
(Kaieteur News) – The Full Court has affirmed a ruling which outlined that social media commentator, Mikhail Rodrigues known as the ‘Guyanese Critic’ is liable to pay Nazar and Azruddin Mohamed $22.5 million for defamation.
The judgment was handed by Justices Fidela Corbin-Lincoln and Nicola Pierre, on Friday.
Mikhail “Guyanese Critic” Rodrigues
Rodrigues had sought to appeal a default decision that was granted by high court Justice Nigel Niles last year. The social media commentator failed to enter an appearance or file a defence in the defamation suit. In his bid to appeal, Rodrigues contended that the trial judge erred in law and misapplied the relevant legal principles in relation to the setting aside of a default judgment. He argued that the trial judge erred in law and failed to apply the proper legal principles.
“The trial judge erred in law and placed an unbalanced emphasis on the procedural rules without adequately considering or applying the relevant principles as it relates to the overriding objective of determining cases fairly and on the merits.” Rodrigues claimed in documents filed by his lawyers.
But the Full Court found that Justice Niles had correctly applied the law.
“Having considered the decision of the learned trial judge, the grounds of appeal and the submissions I find that the appeal should be dismissed since the learned trial judge did not err in refusing to set aside the judgment in default. The learned trial judge considered and correctly applied the criteria set out in CPR12.03 with respect to setting aside a judgment in default. Specifically, I do not find that the learned trial judge erred in his finding that the explanation provided for failing to file the defence was not reasonable and, more importantly in my view, that the defence as set out in the draft defence had no real prospect of success,” the full court said
The court found too “there is no basis upon which the court ought to disturb the learned trial judge’s exercise of his discretion not to set aside the default judgement since he did not make a mistake of law.”
They also found that the criteria to award costs and the default judgment regime were properly applied as the trial Judge gave a written ruling explaining the reasons for his refusal to set aside the defence. According to the full court, Justice Niles had considered as required by r13.03(3)(a) whether the explanation given for failure to file a defence was reasonable, and ruled that no reasonable explanation was given for the failure to file a defence.
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Justice has been served ,our laws are our laws, and shows our Judges and Magistrates respect and uphold the rule of our laws for all our citizens. AMEN