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The CCJ Crisis: Its President Has Responded. Questions Remain.

The lengthy statement by CCJ President Justice Winston Anderson is an important development in a crisis which has damaged the integrity and perceived impartiality of the Court – hopefully not irreparably, but certainly for years to come, particularly if the existing leadership remains in place.

Justice Anderson deserves credit for responding publicly. He rejects allegations of panel fixing and improper attempts to influence judicial outcomes. His explanations deserve fair consideration, but cannot substitute for an independent examination of allegations made by five of the Court’s six other sitting judges.

Two of the controversies are of particular importance to Guyana. On the Mohamed extradition case, Justice Anderson does not directly answer Justice Jamadar’s specific allegation that he attempted to influence colleagues whose views differed from his. Unanimity in the eventual result does not answer an allegation about the integrity of the process by which that result was reached.

The other concerns Guyana’s Judiciary, for which the Constitution makes specific provision. Anderson now acknowledges that in October 2025 he privately sought to encourage agreement on the substantive appointments of Chancellor and Chief Justice, speaking separately with President Irfaan Ali and then Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton. He concedes that another course would have been better and that he might have confined himself to public commentary, as his predecessors had done.

This not only reflects poor judgment unbecoming of the holder of such an exalted judicial office, but raises the more important question whether the President of Guyana’s final appellate court should intervene in a constitutional process entrusted to the President and Leader of the Opposition of a Member State.

Significantly, Anderson sidesteps Norton’s more specific allegations: that he sought Norton’s agreement to particular appointments; said that he had participated in negotiations concerning then acting Chancellor Yonette Cummings-Edwards and sought to facilitate them; and told Norton that the President and others were waiting to swear in the proposed appointees, indicating when questioned that he had been with President Ali.

In a lengthy statement intended to answer the controversies surrounding him, omissions of that significance cannot simply be dismissed as oversight.

Nor can responsibility rest with Justice Anderson alone. At the political level, the circumstances demanded strict observance of the separation between Executive and Judiciary. Instead, President Ali appears to have lent support to an intervention by the President of the CCJ in a process which, according to Norton, encompassed the departure of the then acting Chancellor and the proposed appointment of Guyana’s two highest judicial officers.

Ali must – but won’t – explain his role in these serious matters. Who initiated the discussions? What was discussed? What did he understand Anderson’s role to be? Was the Attorney General consulted?

More fundamentally, if the President was prepared to engage the head of Guyana’s final appellate court in such an intervention at the apex of the judicial system, Guyanese are entitled to ask where he believes the boundary lies between legitimate executive action and interference with the Judiciary. If Ali is prepared to cross that boundary with the apex court, what assurance is there that it will be respected in the domestic courts?

Against this background, Guyana’s institutional responses are disappointing. The Bar Association concentrated on confidentiality and expressly declined to address the substance. That position will inevitably reinforce existing suspicions about its political independence.

For its part, Guyana’s judicial leadership associated itself with a regional statement which declined to address the merits while expressing grave concern about the breach of confidentiality. Given Guyana’s exceptional involvement, was there consultation within our Judiciary before its leadership joined that statement?

There is also an unavoidable issue of perception. In the 2018 presidential term-limits case, Justice Anderson was the lone dissenting judge in the CCJ’s six-to-one decision upholding Guyana’s constitutional term limits. His dissent was entirely within his judicial right and is not evidence of political bias. But his subsequent acknowledged intervention with Guyana’s political Executive inevitably causes that history to be viewed in a new and uncomfortable context.

The controversy also unfairly casts a shadow over the acting Chancellor and acting Chief Justice and their prospects for confirmation. Nothing disclosed establishes wrongdoing by either. That unfair consequence itself demonstrates why the appointment process should have been insulated from outside intervention.

Finally, the Guyana Bar Association and the regional judicial leadership elevated the leaking of confidential correspondence above grave allegations which the CCJ President’s lengthy statement has only partially addressed. There is no evidence that any of the five judges leaked the emails. The disclosure could have come from anyone with access. What matters is that the correspondence exposed an atmosphere harmful to the Court and the Region. The five judges did not create this crisis by raising these concerns. The crisis lay in the conditions that caused them to do so.

Justice Anderson’s statement is welcome but incomplete. It cannot be the final word.

Saturday, August 15, 2026

Mr. President,

The sinking of the MV Barima is, I believe, the worst maritime tragedy in our country’s history. Families have been devastated. Parents have lost children. Children have lost parents. Scores of ordinary Guyanese have perished. Survivors have endured unimaginable trauma. Every Guyanese shares their grief and extends heartfelt sympathy to all whose lives have been changed forever.

In times of grief, the nation expects leadership. In the hours immediately following the tragedy, Guyanese looked to the Government for clear information, decisive action and reassurance that every available resource had been mobilised. Instead, there was uncertainty, confusion, conflicting reports and official statements that raised as many questions as they answered. Attention appeared to shift too quickly from discovering what had happened to defending official action. That only added to the tragedy.

In any national disaster, Government’s first obligation is to activate a machinery capable of minimising further loss of life and damage to property, coordinating rescue efforts, providing timely and accurate information to anxious relatives – including through a dedicated hotline and ensuring that the public receives information that is accurate, consistent and credible. Only then can Government turn to the equally important task of establishing the truth.

That is precisely why Parliament enacted the Guyana Shipping Act, 1998. It recognised that when lives are lost in rivers or at sea, the search for truth cannot be left to official assurances or political debate. The Act itself is an elaborate piece of legislation establishing a statutory framework governing maritime safety, regulation and the independent investigation of marine casualties. It also separated the operation of vessels from their regulation by establishing the Maritime Administration as the country’s maritime regulator. My cursory reading of the Act is that it has been systematically ignored in practice. But that is a matter for another forum.

As the nation comes to terms with the scale of this tragedy, disturbing questions arise.

* Was the Barima properly maintained and operated by the Transport and Harbours Department?

* Had the Maritime Administration discharged its statutory responsibility to regulate and oversee the vessel’s safety to protect lives and limbs of passengers and crew?

* Were the vessel’s inspections, surveys and certificates current and fully compliant with the law?

* Had the Maritime Administration identified any deficiencies and, if so, what corrective action was required and taken?

* Did the Transport and Harbours Department comply with every statutory requirement governing passenger safety?

* How did the Minister, who bears responsibility for both the operator and the regulator, satisfy himself that each had properly discharged its separate statutory responsibilities?

* Did failures of operation, regulation, supervision or enforcement contribute to this disaster?

• Does this concentration of responsibility within a single ministry compromise the independence of the regulatory process?

I ask you not to regard these as political questions. They are legal and factual questions, and we deserve and expect honest and factual answers.

The purpose of an independent investigation is not to assign blame before the evidence is heard. It is to ensure that the evidence is gathered independently, examined objectively and reported publicly. That is how confidence is built. It is also how future tragedies are prevented.

Mr. President, public confidence does not exist in a vacuum. Many Guyanese still carry unanswered questions from previous national tragedies, including the Mahdia Dormitory Fire which cost the lives of twenty of our children. There is a widespread perception that official investigations too often fail to satisfy the reasonable expectation that every relevant fact will be exposed and every lesson learnt. Against that background, the handling of the Barima tragedy assumes even greater significance.

There is another matter that deserves urgent attention.

Our maritime legislation still contains penalties that belong to another era. Conduct capable of exposing passengers to grave danger attracts fines that are derisory by modern standards. In an era when Guyana has become one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, such penalties neither deter misconduct nor reflect the value that our society places upon human life.  That is a matter for Parliament to correct.

But where statutory penalties are inadequate, the responsibility of the State becomes correspondingly greater. The families of those who perished are entitled not merely to sympathy but to justice. If regulatory failures contributed to this tragedy, legal accountability cannot end with outdated fines imposed upon individuals. It must extend, where the law and the evidence justify it, to the public authorities charged with protecting those who entrusted their lives to the nation’s transport system.

Mr. President, the Barima must not be allowed to become another national tragedy remembered only for grief and unanswered questions. It should be remembered as the moment when your Administration demonstrated, by action rather than words, that in Guyana the rule of law is stronger than official convenience, party interest and the protection of personalities. The families of the victims deserve the truth. The people of Guyana deserve accountability. History will remember whether your Administration chose official reassurance or independent scrutiny.

I therefore respectfully urge you to declare an appropriate period of national mourning in honour of those who lost their lives. Thereafter, and without delay, to establish an independent Commission of Inquiry under the Guyana Shipping Act, 1998, and to allow it to discharge its mandate completely independently, free from interference or influence of any kind.

That, I believe, is the surest way to honour the dead, comfort the bereaved and restore public confidence in the administration of justice.

Respectfully,

Christopher Ram

What began almost a quarter of a century ago as a judicial adventure has now run its full course, ending before the Caribbean Court of Justice, the region’s highest court.

The proceedings arose out of a Request for Proposals issued in November 1999 in my capacity as Receiver-Manager of Hotel Tower Limited. CARA submitted what it described as an expression of interest, expressly conditional upon due diligence and other matters. Before the process could run its course, CARA commenced proceedings claiming that I breached contractual and collateral obligations and sought to stall the process.

Those claims were soundly rejected at every level of the court system. The High Court dismissed them. And the Court of Appeal affirmed that decision. But CARA and its counsel persisted. And now, in an erudite, unanimous and thoroughly reasoned judgment, the Caribbean Court of Justice has brought the matter to an end.

In its judgment, the Court clarified and restated the law in Guyana on tendering and contractual formation. It recognised the concept of a process contract – now applicable to both public and private tendering – while making it clear that such a contract does not arise automatically. The decision requires a careful review of how tender processes are structured and communicated. It also provides timely and authoritative guidance on the need for clarity in tender documents, strict compliance by bidders, and discipline in the conduct of the process.

That CARA chose to pursue this litigation was not without consequence – and benefits. The Court used the opportunity to develop the law and, in doing so, offered clear reminders about the proper limits of litigation. The duty of legal counsel is not only to advance their clients’ cases but to advise against claims that are speculative, premature, or lacking in legal foundation. When that duty is not observed, the consequences are inevitable – as CARA has now learned to its cost.

In my respectful view, this case lacked merit from the outset and ought not to have been pursued. It has, however, served a useful purpose. The law has now advanced, and our practices and procedures must follow in lockstep. The guidance is clear. The integrity of the tendering process in Guyana – and accountability in contract awards – will be stronger for it.

Christopher Ram

25 March 2026

Introduction

Other than periodic, campaign-style announcements, the Silica City project on the Soesdyke-Linden Highway operates in near-complete secrecy. It is repeatedly celebrated as the President’s “brainchild”, yet the public has been told nothing of how it is financed, how it is structured within government, or by what criteria the beneficiaries of its house lots will be selected. That pattern was maintained most recently as last week, when Collin Croal, Minister of Housing, announced that agreements have been signed and allocations of houses made, without accompanying disclosure of any legal authority, eligibility rules, pricing framework, or institutional approvals governing those allocations.

This silence is not accidental. Silica City has been variously described as a housing scheme, a “young professionals” enclave, a smart city, a decongestion strategy, and a commercial and healthcare hub. The descriptions shift with the audience – and with each statement. That is contrived confusion to avoid the project being pinned down to a single statutory regime, a single governance framework, or a single line of accountability. When a project is so flaky, when it begins to appear like a recycled scheme, it is time to raise the alarm.

We have seen this movie before. The Sparendaam housing project – Pradoville 2 – did not unravel by accident. The investigation showed that it was financed through multiple state entities, with no single institution carrying the full cost and no consolidated accounting of the project. That fragmentation diluted responsibility, obscured the true cost, and prevented scrutiny until long after land was transferred and beneficiaries entrenched. By the time the full picture emerged, accountability was already lost – and no one was ever held responsible.

The forensic investigation later showed how the absence of clear statutory footing, the bypassing of institutional processes, undisclosed allocation criteria, missing records, and political direction substituting for law produced outcomes that benefited a select few, including the then President, Ministers, party figures, and carefully chosen beneficiaries.

The project  

Little has been said about Silica City’s administration, except that it appears to fall under the Central Housing and Planning Authority, established under the Housing Act, more noted for its outdatedness (1946) than for its relevance. The CHPA is a statutory authority governed by the Housing Act, with defined objectives – Housing of persons of the Working Class –  procedures, reporting obligations, and safeguards designed to prevent the kind of opacity and looseness exposed by the Sparendaam investigation.

Yet, an enduring and necessary safeguard provided for under the Act has been dispensed with – too inconvenient for Silica City. Annual Reports have disappeared. There is no identifiable public accounting for the project. The project does not appear in the National Estimates, nor is it identifiable in the financial statements of the CHPA or any other government authority. This is despite the vast sums being spent on infrastructure and construction.

The chain of command compounds the danger. The Minister administering CHPA reports directly to Mohamed Irfaan Ali. There has been some reshuffling of junior ministers, but a party loyalist remains in charge. From all accounts, the administrative structure and key personnel unchanged. The result: a flagship housing project executed by CHPA under direct political oversight, with diminished reporting and no transparent disclosure of financing, governance, or allocation criteria. All in an environment of an explosion of funds accompanied by an erosion of accountability.

Loosening the reins of accountability

Since the PPP/C returned to office in 2020, CHPA has abandoned the comprehensive Annual Reports required by section 49 of the Housing Act, substituting bare audited financial statements that say nothing about projects, allocations, beneficiaries, or policy decisions. The stage was set: no meaningful statutory reporting. As a result, Silica City is rendered financially invisible to citizens and Parliament alike. This violation of the law shields the project from scrutiny while land is allocated, infrastructure constructed, and commitments locked in.

That this has gone undetected and unchallenged is itself a serious institutional failure. The Audit Office of Guyana exists to ensure compliance not only with accounting standards, but with the laws governing public authorities. The absence of Annual Reports, and the complete invisibility of Silica City in CHPA’s published accounts, should have been explicitly flagged.

Equally troubling is the silence of the National Assembly of Guyana, at least some of whose members know that the Housing Act requires far more than numbers stripped of context. When a statutory reporting framework collapses in plain sight, unnoticed by auditors and unchallenged by Parliament, accountability disappears, and lawful administration collapses. 

President Ali

At this point, it is no longer credible to discuss Silica City without addressing the common role of President Ali himself. The Sparendaam investigation did not describe a single rogue decision or a momentary lapse. It documented an infrastructure of persons and practices through which housing projects were executed: political direction overriding statute, institutions reduced to conduits, records absent or reconstructed after the fact, and accountability dissolved by design. 

What makes the current project more troubling is that many of the same enabling conditions have re-emerged on a far larger and more expensive scale. Then, Dr Ali operated as Housing Minister under a President. Now, he is the President. Then he reported to Cabinet. Now, Cabinet reports to him.

Silica City is framed as a legacy project. But vanity cannot come before legality, and legacy cannot be built on secrecy, evasion, and disregard for statutory accountability. History is unforgiving on this point. It judges leaders not by the size of their projects, but by whether those projects followed the law, the institutions of the state, and earned the public trust.

Conclusion

Having been involved in the investigation into the Sparendaam project, I recognise the warning signs. I fear that if this project is allowed to continue under existing conditions of opacity, avoidance of scrutiny, and deliberate invisibility, we will not later be wondering whether Silica City was Pradoville 3.

We will already know the answer.