Dear Editor,
The Berbice Bar Association condemns in the strongest possible terms the un-warranted and un-justifiable attack by the Attorney General and the Guyana Chronicle on the Chancellor and the Judiciary. (January 19, 2017)
This association adopts the article published in your newspapers by Mr Murseline Bacchus, Attorney-at-Law, where he gave a comprehensive history of the appeal filed by the Attorney General against the ruling of Justice Navindra Singh quashing the charge against the former President.
It is observed by this Association that no one, including the law offices of the State, has disputed the factual matrix presented by Mr Bacchus in that article.
Therefore it is of grave concern to us that neither the Guyana Bar Association nor the Association of Guyana’s Women Lawyers has seen it fit to make a statement critical of the Attorney General’s and the Guyana Chronicle’s attack on the independence of the judiciary and the integrity of its highest judge. By their silence those association have condoned the attacks.
We remind those associations that an attack on the judiciary is by necessary extension an attack on the entire bar, since all members of the judiciary came from the bar. Not even in the days of “paramountcy of the party” when a certain flag was attached to the Court of Appeal, did anyone make an attack on the Judiciary.
We also condemn the Prime Minister, who holds responsibility for the Guyana Chronicle, for not disciplining the editors of the Guyana Chronicle or at least to make a public statement on the matter.
Those responsible for the attack on the Judiciary are guilty of scandalising the Court and perhaps the time is ripe for that august body, the Judiciary, to move the Court in Contempt proceedings against those responsible, including the editors of the Guyana Chronicle.
We have looked at the official court records and are convinced, as any sober person would, that the filing of the appeal with the Attorney General as “Appellant”, was a colossal legal blunder and that unlawful act could not have been salvaged legally.
We also condemn the attempt by the article to suggest that the decision was that of the Chancellor alone, when in fact it was the decision of the full Court – the Chancellor, Justice of Appeal BS Roy and additional Judge Madam Dawn Gregory.
It is noted by us that the Attorney General has said, and we quote: “We will take the case to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).” We wish to remind him that an appeal to Caribbean Court of Justice requires leave from the Court of Appeal or the Caribbean Court of Justice itself and that for such leave to be granted the burden is on him to show that the intended appeal has merit. We doubt very much that the intended appeal would have any merit in as much as the Court of Appeal was correct to dismiss the appeal.
Regards,
Berbice Bar
Association
