Former GECOM DCEO wins defamation case against Vincent Alexander, Chronicle

…awarded $4.3M

Former Deputy Chief Elections Officer (DCEO) of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Vishnu Persaud has been vindicated by the courts, winning a $4.3 million judgement against GECOM Commissioner Vincent Alexander and a State media outlet in his libel suit.

The judgement was handed down on Tuesday by Puisne Judge Priya Sewnarine-Beharry, who awarded Persaud $4.3 million in costs and damages. The defendants in the case are A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC)-nominated GECOM Commissioner Vincent Alexander, the Guyana Chronicle and Editor in Chief Nigel Williams.
The particulars of the case are that Alexander was quoted in the newspapers on June 14, 2018, making statements which Persaud contended were defamatory towards him. The statements pertain to Persaud’s qualifications for the position of DCEO.

Persaud contended that Alexander further defamed him in the newspaper on June 20, 2018. According to Persaud, he was employed at GECOM from 2001 to 2017, during which time his qualifications were not in doubt. And Persaud has always maintained that he never misrepresented his qualifications.
Both articles were in relation to the controversial appointment of Roxanne Myers as the DCEO, even though Persaud, who had also applied for the position, was more qualified – a position which was confirmed by an investigation conducted by the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC).
In her ruling, Justice Sewnarine-Beharry highlighted that the publications were made locally and on the world wide web.

“The first-named Defendant went out of his way to publish the statements on platforms which reached readers locally and worldwide. He ignored the demand letter sent by the claimant’s attorney. Rather than publishing a retraction of the article and an apology he defended the statements as true in spite of plain evidence to the contrary,” Sewnarine-Beharry said in her ruling.
She said, “the extent of the damage was compounded by the fact that the publications were made by the first-named defendant [Alexander] who was a long-standing GECOM Commissioner and a significant figure in civil society and who the average Guyanese would tend to trust and believe, more so because he was well placed to know the facts.”
“The repeated publication on the part of the first-named defendant after the claimant was not selected for the position of DCEO in 2018 is indicative of malice as it served no other purpose than to damage the claimant’s reputation,” the Judge added.
When it comes to the Guyana Chronicle and Williams, however, Sewnarine-Beharry found that there was an absence of malice on their part. According to the Judgement, they did make corrections to the publications.
In addition, the Guyana Chronicle retracted the offending articles and offered to publish a second apology, though they stopped short of publishing one prepared by Persaud. These were considered in mitigation.
The defendants had argued that Alexander’s statements on Persaud were of public importance and were therefore published. In her ruling, Sewnarine-Beharry said that the statements were based on falsehoods and as such, the threshold for the fair comment defence was not met.
The Judge ordered that Alexander, as the first-named defendant, pay Persaud $2.5 million in damages. The Guyana Chronicle and Williams, who has since proceeded on leave with the change in Government, were ordered to pay $1.5 million in damages.
They were also ordered to pay a total of $300,000 in costs to Persaud, who was represented by Attorney-at-Law Devindra Kissoon and Nicholas Caryll by September 30, 2020. Alexander was represented by Senior Counsel Roysdale Forde and Asa Shepherd Stewart represented both second and third named defendants.
Persaud’s contract at GECOM ended in 2017, after which GECOM retendered for the Deputy CEO position. Persaud reapplied but was overlooked in favour of current DCEO Roxanne Myers, despite scoring higher in the assessment.
In fact, the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC) conducted an investigation, where they concluded that Persaud was indeed unfairly passed over. Importantly, the ERC report found “no evidence to suggest that Mr. Persaud made any misrepresentation with regard to his qualification to the Commission”.
Despite Persaud being the top-ranked candidate, Alexander and his fellow Government-nominated Commissioners voted for Myers to be appointed while the Opposition Commissioners voted for Persaud. The GECOM Chairman at the time, Retired Justice James Patterson, used his deciding vote in favour of Myers.
That investigation was conducted by Retired Justice Stanley Moore, who had served as Home Affairs Minister under late President LFS Burnham during the People’s National Congress (PNC) regime, along with former Deputy Commissioner of Police, Lloyd Smith and human resources consultant Jairam Petam. (G3)