Dear Editor,
Never before in the legal history of Guyana has an Attorney General levelled publicly such a blast of terror and fear upon any Head of the Judiciary or his own Legal Officer.
The fallout from this scurrilous blast has radiated its tremulous fear through the spinal cord of the entire body of the Judiciary in Guyana and elsewhere. This act of madness and irresponsibility was unleashed by the Hon Attorney General, Basil Williams to the editor of the Guyana Chronicle on the 19th January 2017 vide copy of article on pages 1 & 3. Its Editor did not make any prudent check or investigation or make any enquiries of the Registrar of the Appeal Court to verify the facts as he is duty-bound to do, before he plunged himself into the abyss of the dark and dastardly deeds, of contempt, vilification and degradation of an independent institution, that is, the Judiciary as guaranteed by the Constitution of Guyana.
There is in court, recorded documents to show the pure stream of justice was flowing uninterruptedly concerning Jagdeo’s case until the Editor of the Guyana Chronicle and the Attorney General of Guyana polluted same. Your prejudiced perception is that the Chancellor together with applicant Bharrat Jagdeo; his Attorney-at-Law, M Bacchus and the Deputy Solicitor General Prithima Kissoon, all of common ethnicity, caused the Attorney General and the Editor to fall in the dark mud of malice and partiality that Jagdeo must receive the benefit from the court unjustly. But the law does not recognise skin colour; the law is the law.
They paid no heed how the bench was constituted ,and they became blinded and dethroned of all reason and forgetting their functions as journalist and the leader of the Bar, with implicit false faith in the contemptuous utterances of Basil Williams, the Attorney General of Guyana, then gleefully, gladly penned the poisonous piece of journalistic venom accusing the court of partiality and conspiracy to dethrone justice.
The Attorney General, who has such legal wisdom and foresight, ought to have seen the unholy conspiracy of the Bench and Bar and should have appeared in person, as Leader of the Bar, filed his Affidavit in Answer, argued his case as a legal luminary and eminent counsel and crushed the applicant’s case to smithereens. Let him tell you and the nation why he did not, after he recognised and detected this wicked conspiracy of which he and the press have verbally assaulted and damnified the Judiciary into contempt, disrepute, impartiality and the members of the Bench with defamatory remarks who are unworthy to hold such office. Why not judge men by the content of their character rather than by the colour of their skin.
The Editor has let down those who repose confidence in him to be a just, fair-minded and objective journalist who has now sinned against the predecessors who held that high, noble and splendid office of learning and honour, namely, the Attorneys General such as Dr Fenton Ramsahoye, Sir Shridath Ramphal, Mr Fred Wills, Dr Mohamed Shahabudin and Mr Keith Massiah who have been betrayed by the current Attorney General, Mr Basil Williams, SC, through libel, slander and contempt. It will take a new generation of lawyers to restore the pristine glory of these great chambers.
Yours respectfully,
Jailall Kissoon
Attorney -at-Law
