High Court throws out lawsuit filed by murder accused kept on remand for 9 years

– orders him to pay AG $500K

High Court Judge, Justice Navindra Singh has dismissed a lawsuit filed by Jones Raymond, who had claimed that his imprisonment for almost 10 years on a murder charge constituted a breach of his fundamental rights.
But Justice Singh found in his ruling on Friday that Raymond’s rights as provided for in Article 141 (1) of the Constitution of the Republic of Guyana have not been infringed.
Raymond had been remanded for the murder of 33-year-old Gary Joseph, which had occurred sometime between December 26 and December 27, 2012. He was subsequently charged with murder and remanded to prison on December 28, 2012.
The father of four, who had been on remand for more than nine years, was released from prison by Justice Sandil Kissoon in July 2022 because of the lengthy time he had spent in pre-trial detention. In ordering the release of the murder accused, Justice Kissoon had, among other things, declared that the State had violated Raymond’s constitutional right to a fair trial within a reasonable time, as guaranteed under Article 144 of the Constitution, due to the inordinate delay in trying him. Justice Kissoon had also stayed all criminal proceedings against Raymond.

Following his release, the 68-year-old Raymond, of Micobie Village, Region Eight (Potaro-Siparuni), filed a lawsuit against the State – naming the Attorney General as the respondent, seeking more than $1 million in compensation for the violation of his fundamental right to protection of the law, guaranteed under Article 144 (1) of the Constitution, as a result of him being imprisoned on remand for more than nine years without a trial, after being charged with the capital offence of murder.

His legal team, which was led by Timothy Jonas, SC, claimed this was in contravention of Raymond’s right to receive a trial before a court within a reasonable time, as guaranteed by the above-mentioned constitutional provision.
The lawyers had also sought damages of over $1 million for the inhumane and degrading treatment their client had endured while being incarcerated in both the Camp Street and Lusignan Prisons for more than nine years without a trial. And they sought compensation for Raymond of more than $1 million for having been kept and housed in prison in awful and deplorable conditions.
However, in Friday’s judgement, Justice Singh ruled on the issue of Article 144, saying there was no breach of Raymond’s right to a fair trial. He found that the claimant’s assertion of his right to a trial does not mean that he has to specifically demand a trial, rather, the court is entitled to assess the claimant’s conduct in determining whether he waived his right to a trial for any or all of the delay period.
The court found that Raymond effectively waived any period of delay when he indicated that he wanted to plead guilty to the lesser offence of manslaughter before Justice Kissoon, who had sent the case to the Suddie High Court for the plea to be taken.
Moreover, Justice Singh said Raymond had not averred to any actual instance of prejudice that he has suffered as a result of the purported delay in being able to prepare or lead a defence at a trial, if he had opted to have his trial on the charge of murder.
The Judge ruled that a lengthy time on remand awaiting trial or the completion of a Preliminary Inquiry (PI) does not, without further evidence, mean that an accused person would not be able to get a fair trial.
According to the High Court Judge, even Justice Kissoon, despite staying the murder charge, did not find that Raymond could no longer get a fair trial and as long as a fair trial is possible, it is in the public’s interest that cases should be tried, especially when the charge is murder and the accused is accepting liability for homicide.
In fact, Justice Singh declared that a stay of prosecution of the charge is gratuitous and is an affront to public justice.
While the High Court Judge did find that there was an unacceptable and unexplained delay in the prosecution of the charge against Raymond, he contended that the claimant’s right to a fair hearing within a reasonable time as provided for in Article 144 of the Constitution of the Republic of Guyana had not been infringed.
The court also found that by his pleadings the claimant is not claiming that he was subjected to degrading treatment or in any event has not pleaded facts to support a claim that he was subjected to degrading treatment while incarcerated.
With regard to claims that Raymond was placed in an unsanitary and uncomfortable environment, he has not pleaded that that caused him any serious physical and/or mental pain or suffering. It is clear from the pleadings that his health did not suffer nor did he contract any illness as a result of the alleged unsanitary environment.
As a result, the High Court did not find that the allegations set out in the pleadings demonstrate that the claimant was subjected to inhuman treatment.
In coming to these conclusions, Justice Singh cited several case law authorities from the United Kingdom, the United States, the Caribbean, and Guyana. He also ordered that Raymond pay the Attorney General costs to the tune of $500,000.
Despite the stay in the prosecution of the case, Raymond is still facing the murder charge. The prosecution’s case was that the deceased and several friends had been imbibing at a shop on Boxing Day of December 2012 when he had an altercation with Raymond, who then armed himself with an arrow and bow and shot the man. The arrow had struck the abdomen of the now-deceased man. The injured man had been rushed to the Mahdia Hospital before being transferred to the Georgetown Public Hospital, where he died.