The news that a lawyer was “temporarily remanded…over his failure to submit promised evidence…[and] spent a few minutes in the holding area for prisoners on Wednesday” (SN September 30) is indeed disturbing. Police Legal Adviser Mandel Moore had failed on several occasions to provide a video to a Magistrates’ Court presided over by Magistrate Leron Daly who had taken the action against him, as reported by SN. This is a rare case of a lawyer being “remanded.” But threats to ‘jail’ lawyers by those who purport to dispense justice are not isolated occurrences. It occurs with frightening regularity for trivial reasons. Lawyers, especially young lawyers, are unlikely to confront legal rulings in the course of a trial or ask a magistrate or judge to recuse himself or herself for bias or the appearance of bias, for fear of a charge of contempt in the face of the court and imprisonment. This is based on living experiences.
Continue reading “JAILING OR THREATENING TO JAIL LAWYERS”THE PRESIDENT, NOT THE JUDICIAL SERVICE COMMISSION, HAS THE SOLE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE APPOINTMENT OF THE CHANCELLOR AND CHIEF JUSTICE
Article 127(1) of the Constitution provides as follows: “The Chancellor and Chief Justice shall each be appointed by the President, acting after obtaining the agreement of the Leader of the Opposition.” Article 128(1) underlines the power of appointment given to the President. It provides: “The Judges, other than the Chancellor and Chief Justice, shall be appointed by the President who shall act in accordance with the advice of the Judicial Service Commission.”
Continue reading “THE PRESIDENT, NOT THE JUDICIAL SERVICE COMMISSION, HAS THE SOLE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE APPOINTMENT OF THE CHANCELLOR AND CHIEF JUSTICE”TUNNEL VISION
I am not a practitioner of ethnic politics and will not be ensnared into that dead end. Lincoln Lewis or anyone else is free to promote and defend ethnic rights and engage in ethnic politics. But I believe that the solution to Guyana’s ethno-political problems requires a policy that supersedes ethnic fundamentalism. While an active member of two political parties, my personal flagship issue was shared governance, to which I was converted in 1977. It offers a political solution to the enduring problem in Guyana of ethno-political dominance. A political solution in Guyana is the only foundation on which ethnic rights and interests can be successfully addressed.
Continue reading “TUNNEL VISION”QUEEN ELIZABETH II
The death of Queen Elizabeth II brings to an end the longest ‘reign’ of a monarch in British history. A revered symbol of service, dedication, stability and endurance to Britain and the Commonwealth, her passing marks the end of an era that spanned the abdication of King Edward VIII in 1936, within her childhood memory, to the celebration of her Platinum Jubilee marking 70 years as Queen. Not yet Queen, she experienced the Second World War and the independence of India, after the Churchill’s deliberate starvation of three million Bengali Indians, the Cold War inspired anti-colonial wars in Malaya, Kenya and other colonies and later British support for US interventions in Vietnam, Grenada, Iraq and elsewhere, the colonial war against Argentina in 1982, the xenophobic rejection Britain post-colonial future as part of Europe and the threat of Scotland’s departure. She endured the scandals created by Charles and Andrew. Elizabeth became Queen in 1952 and Guyana’s constitution was suspended in 1953. Some of the PPP’s leaders, including my father, were imprisoned. Subsequent neocolonial strategies brought about reconciliation with Kenyatta and other militant leaders, but not with Cheddi Jagan and the PPP, at the US’s insistence.
Continue reading “QUEEN ELIZABETH II”HAS THE PNCR/APNU NOW TRANSITIONED TO A FULLY FLEDGED ETHNIC PARTY?
Has the PNCR/APNU now transitioned to a fully fledged ethnic party prone to violence and threats of violence? It seems so, notwithstanding that Indian Guyanese and of other ethnicities are in its leadership.
Continue reading “HAS THE PNCR/APNU NOW TRANSITIONED TO A FULLY FLEDGED ETHNIC PARTY?”