Former President testifies in Red House case

Lease revocation challenge

As the trial on the Red House lease revocation challenge concluded last week, former President Donald Ramotar testified before acting Chief Justice Roxane George, SC, that while he did not put his own signature on the lease granted to the Cheddi Jagan Research Institute (CJRI), he granted approval, instructing the Commissioner of Lands and Surveys to sign the document.
Although Ramotar has immunity under the 1980 Constitution, as his lawyer, Anil Nandlall highlighted, the Attorney called him to the stand. The former Head of State stressed that the Research Institute was granted approval to operate in the building since the year 2000.
Justice George set December 17, 2018 to hand down her decision in the matter of the Institute challenging President David Granger’s revocation of its 99-year lease that former President Ramotar said he approved in 2012. This was some 12 years after the body was incorporated as a company under the Companies Act, and operated at Red House.
Both Attorney General Williams and Attorney Nandlall, his predecessor, presented closing addresses to the court.
Williams opined that the President of Guyana was required by law to signify approval of a land transaction while Nandlall countered that the law did not require the President to issue written approval. Nandlall added that Parliament, in making the relevant statue relating to lands, said the President should sanction but did not express how the President should exercise that sanction.
Ramotar, who was the long-time General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party, was also a founding member of the Institute along with Dr Cheddi Jagan’s wife, former President, the late Janet Jagan and their daughter Nadira Jagan-Brancier.
Ramotar outlined that the Institute aimed to preserve the work and memory of Dr Jagan, who served as President from 1992 until his death in 1997. In late December 2016, President Granger, under the coalition Administration, gave the occupants of Red House 48 hours to vacate the premises.
This led to much public uproar and a subsequent legal challenge.