Five judges ain’t enough

Aug 12, 2026 Dem Boys Seh, Features / Columnists, News

(Kaieteur News) – Dem boys seh Guyana got a new branch of jurisprudence. It is called: creative arithmetic.

Remember when a lawyer did explain that 33 votes outta 65 was not really a majority? His mathematics was simple. Half of 65 is 32.5. But since you cannot have half a man sitting in parliament, 32.5 must become 33. And since 33 is merely the rounded-up half, you must add one more to get a real majority. Therefore, according to this revolutionary arithmetic, 34 was required.

Dem boys seh that same mathematics could now solve another big legal problem. Suppose a court got six judges and five of them object to something the president of the court do. Surely five cannot be enough.

Why?

Because six divided by two is three. Three is half the court. Therefore, to get a majority you need four. But four is merely the rounded-up half. So, following the famous 32.5 principle, you must add one more. That gives five.

Ah! But wait!

Five is only five outta six. And six judges mean six people. Since one of the six is the very person whose conduct is being complained about, surely it would be mathematically unfair to allow the five complainers to decide anything without the sixth person agreeing that he himself should be complained about.

After all, what kind of proper legal complaint is that where the person being complained about refuses to join the complaint? Dem boys therefore propose a new judicial principle called the Unanimous Complaint Rule.

Five judges can object, complain, protest, raise eyebrows, shake heads, write emails and probably even hold a seminar—but until the sixth judge joins them and objects to his own conduct, the complaint is mathematically incomplete.

And if the sixth judge refuses?

Simple. Six divided by two is three. Round it up to four. Add one for safety and you get five. But since five is five-sixths, and five-sixths is not six-sixths, the only legally safe number is six. Therefore, five judges objecting is not enough.

We need all six. Including the judge being complained about.

Dem boys seh that is how you get justice by arithmetic.

And if anybody object to the mathematics, dem boys got one question: Can you find half a judge?

Talk half. Leff half.

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CCJ, Dem Boys Seh, jurisprudence

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