Stretching principles beyond recognition

Aug 03, 2026 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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(Kaieteur News) – The present controversy over possible alleged conflicts of interest involving two members of the Commission of Inquiry into the M.V. Barima tragedy illustrates how easily an important principle can be stretched beyond recognition.

Independence and impartiality are indispensable to a credible inquiry. But the mere existence of a professional, commercial or institutional connection does not, by itself, establish a conflict of interest.

The first thing that needs to be understood is that a Commission of Inquiry is not a court conducting a trial. A judge in a criminal or civil trial occupies a very different position from a commissioner conducting a fact-finding inquiry.

A judge must determine the legal rights and liabilities of parties before the court. The judge must decide whether the prosecution has proved its case beyond reasonable doubt or, in a civil matter, whether a claimant has established his case on the applicable standard. The judge’s decision is binding and has direct legal consequences for the parties.

That is why the law takes judicial conflicts of interest extremely seriously. A judge cannot have a direct personal interest in the outcome. Nor should there be circumstances creating a reasonable apprehension that the judge might favour one party over another. The judicial process depends upon the decision-maker being, and being seen to be, detached from the litigants and the controversy.

A Commission of Inquiry occupies a different terrain. The M.V. Barima Commission has been established to unearth the facts surrounding the disaster, examine what happened before and after the vessel sank, scrutinize the response, consider compliance with maritime and safety requirements, identify possible failures and make recommendations.

That is a fact-finding and investigative function, not the adjudication of a lawsuit between opposing parties. The commissioners are not being asked to decide whether Minister A wins against Citizen B. They are not determining the guilt or innocence of a defendant in the criminal proceedings arising from the tragedy.

The Commission is instead expected to gather evidence from multiple sources, hear witnesses, examine documents, inspect technical material and reach conclusions about what occurred. Its conclusions may subsequently inform governmental action, administrative decisions, regulatory reform or even other proceedings. But that does not transform the Commission into a court.

This brings us to the first alleged conflict: the suggestion that a commissioner’s law firm has had a relationship with the law firm of a local Minister. If the argument is simply that Law Firm A has had professional dealings or an association with Law Firm B, and Law Firm B represents or is associated with Minister X, that is a remarkably long road to an actual conflict of interest.

A genuine conflict would require something much more substantial. Otherwise, we could quickly arrive at the absurd proposition that no lawyer who has ever worked with, against, alongside or in the professional orbit of another lawyer could participate in an inquiry involving the new employers of the lawyer.

That is not how professional independence works. Lawyers operate in overlapping professional circles. Firms act for thousands of clients. Counsel appear against one another in one case and together in another. Professional acquaintance is not allegiance; and a firm’s relationship with another firm does not automatically become the personal interest of every lawyer connected with either firm.

We are told that another commissioner may also have an interest in Guyana’s marine sector and that, because the Maritime Administration Department—MARAD—is likely to come under scrutiny, this constitutes a conflict.

But if involvement in Guyana’s maritime sector were itself disqualifying, then the very people Guyana most needs on a maritime disaster inquiry would be excluded from it. The Commission includes people selected precisely because of their expertise in maritime operations, marine engineering, maritime law and maritime safety. Its membership includes a naval architect and marine engineer, a senior maritime surveyor and compliance auditor, a former senior military officer with maritime experience and a specialist in admiralty and maritime law.

That is not a defect in the Commission. It is the reason for having such a Commission.

Indeed, there is a curious contradiction in demanding an inquiry that is both technically competent and completely untouched by the local maritime industry. A person who knows nothing about the local sector may be impeccably unconnected but may also be spectacularly unqualified to understand the evidence.

If a commissioner owns a company whose regulatory status depends upon the outcome of findings concerning MARAD that is plainly something requiring disclosure not necessarily disqualification. But a general professional or business connection to the marine sector is not equivalent to a vested interest in the outcome of the COI.

That is precisely why the Commission’s credibility should be tested against evidence of actual or reasonably apprehended partiality, not by constructing chains of association. There is a danger when legitimate scrutiny becomes conflict-of-interest inflation, where acquaintance becomes association, association becomes interest, interest becomes conflict, and conflict becomes presumed bias.

The commissioners do not have to be people who have never encountered a minister, never worked with a lawyer, never dealt with a maritime institution and never had professional or economic interests in Guyana. They have to be people capable of putting those relationships aside and following the evidence.

That is the standard by which this Commission should ultimately be judged. Not by who once knew whom. Not by whose law firm has a relationship with another local law firm. Or who may or may not have a business interest in the marine sector.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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• controversy, Peeping Tom, principles, Recognition

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