Category: Letters to the editor

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Satisfaction with the appointment of an Ombudsman

I would like to express satisfaction and extend my congratulations on the appointment of retired Judge Winston Moore as Ombudsman. To President Ramotar I say well done on this first step to establishing and/or restoring non-functioning constitutional offices, and to Mr Moore congratulations. It must have taken courage by the President to make the announcement to fill an office that his predecessor left vacant for more than a full presidential term.

Guyana has the distinction of being the first country in the Commonwealth Caribbean and Western hemisphere and second only to New Zealand among Common-wealth countries to have a constitutionally entrenched Ombudsman system. In Guyana, the Office of Ombudsman is a requirement of the constitution and is buttressed by a separate statute.

The Office of Ombudsman was created in the 1966 Independence Constitution and its powers have remained largely unchanged since then: to investigate any administrative action taken by any government department or other authority or by the President, ministers, officers or members of any government department or other authority. The 1980 Constitution brought actions by the President within the scope of the Ombudsman’s powers.

Given the tremendous backlog of matters which would fall to be investigated and the loss of institutional capacity to deal with them, Mr Moore has a herculean task on his hands. He will need not only the necessary resources but also the cooperation of the public and of the government agencies against which complaints are lodged.

In a Foreword to the publication of the Role of the Ombudsman in Guyana by the previous Ombuds-man, Mr S Y Mohamed, former Chancellor of the Judiciary Keith Massiah noted that Mr Mohamed had “exposed the frustrations of the Office, the scant regard paid to his recommendations by public officials, seeming lack of parliamentary interest in his work and the discourtesy of some public officers…”

At the swearing-in of Mr Moore, President Ramotar said that “constitutionally the country needs not only an Ombudsman but one that is effective.” The President must now ensure that the resources to make the office effective are provided and that the government establishes a strict protocol requiring public officers to cooperate with the Ombudsman and his staff.

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Sale of 950M preference shares by NICIL does not alter response to PSC

The Private Sector Commission (PSC) in its most recent statement (December 20, 2013) on the Berbice Bridge Company Inc was unwilling to acknowledge writing the following on December 11: “As far as we are aware, the Government directly or indirectly has no investment in, or liability relating to, the [Berbice River] bridge at this time.” Seen as a crudely disguised political response to APNU’s call for reduced toll charges across the Berbice River, the statement drew questions from some of the PSC’s membership about the process leading up to its issue.

Instead of addressing the concerns whether the December 11 statement was authorised by the PSC’s executive rather than authored at the behest of one member of the executive, the PSC after an unsuccessful investigation into an email “leak” chose intrigue, diversion, distortion and deception. Its latest offering reveals that NICIL has sold to the National Insurance Scheme 950 million worth of preference shares in the Berbice Bridge Company Inc, which itself never acknowledged the existence, let alone the ownership of those shares, even in statutory filings signed by then Company Secretary Winston Brassington.
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The leadership of the GDF has a constitutional duty to raise the Muri permission formally with President Ramotar

The statement attributed to the Chief-of-Staff of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) Brigadier Mark Phillips in relation to survey rights to 2,200,000 acres granted to a company with powerful Brazilian ties raises a number of issues. The Chief-of-Staff is reported to have said: “The army will remain committed and adherent to the policies of the government. ‘The government has a responsibility for governing the country and determining what is best, so the GDF will respect any decisions made for the country.’”

While democracies accept the importance of having the military answerable to the civilian administration, a constitutional amendment in 2001 defined the country’s defence and security policy, the role of the Defence and Security Forces in relation to that policy, and the allegiance of the members of those forces. These are set out, perhaps not by accident, in Article 197 A of the constitution, the same article that deals with the judicature.
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Mr Granger should not separate national legislative agenda from anti-laundering bill

Joint Statement issued with Ramon Gaskin:

The Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (Amendment) Bill, currently the subject of intense speculation and national debate, was being considered by a Select Committee prior to the National Assembly proceeding on its two- month recess.

Despite the urgency that the Bill be passed into law to prevent Guyana being deemed as non-compliant with its international obligation, no work was done by the Select Committee for the entire ten weeks or so from the recess date.

We have since learnt that shortly after the Select Committee’s resumption, at a meeting which none of the opposition members could attend, lead PPP/C member Ms. Gail Teixeira, Chairperson, abruptly terminated consideration of the Bill and brought the Committee to an end. Her action deprived not only the opposition MPs but also members of the public the opportunity to appear before the Committee to present their views.
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Mr Nandlall should provide the basis for the claim to these astounding powers

According to the Guyana Chronicle of Saturday, October 26, 2013, Mr. Anil Nandlall, Attorney General, commenting on what he referred to as a gag order by a judge in a pending legal matter in the High Court states: “In our legal system, the holder of the office of Attorney General is the protector of the public’s legal interest and the defender of the Constitution of Guyana…” These are astounding powers with which Mr. Nandlall seeks to clothe himself, apparently simply by stating so. He has no such role, functions or powers.

On the issue in which he gratuitously inserts himself, Mr. Nandlall cites principles and authorities mainly from the UK which does not have a written constitution and would therefore be of doubtful authority, and from India, which does. Yet his singular acknowledgement to Guyana is a case of dubious relevance to the substance of what he attempted to address.

Incredibly, while the post of Attorney General is a creation of the Constitution of Guyana, Mr. Nandlall omits to cite Article 112 which sets out in clear language the role of the Attorney General. That article states:

“There shall be an Attorney General of Guyana who shall be the principal legal adviser to the Government of Guyana and who shall be appointed by the President.”

Mr. Nandlall should now assist Guyanese by identifying for us those Articles of the Constitution which in his learned opinion make him the protector of the public’s legal interest and the defender of the Constitution of Guyana. And he must also explain to us his failure to defend our interest in the several violations of mandatory provisions of the Constitution including the requirements for an Ombudsman (Article 191), Public Procurement Commission (Article 121 W) and local government elections (Article 71).

Neither Mr. Nandlall nor his Chambers appeared in the matter in which the Judge made the order and unless he has apprised himself of both text and context of the order it seems completely out of place for him to describe the Judge’s ruling as a “misuse, if not an abuse” of a legal principle. Assuming that he was approached in whatever capacity by the party against whom the order was made, the proper course of action for him was to refer the party to their legal counsel to seek such redress as is available under the law.

I hope that there is one thing that Mr. Nandlall and I will agree on, and that is, the importance of restoring dignity to the office of the Attorney General to which much damage has been done over the past decade.