Dear Counsel,

YOUR purported legal letter of May 28, 2020 to Mr. Louis Crawford, the Registrar of Guyana, is stunning and embarrassing to the legal fraternity in Guyana and the entire family of practitioners of Commonwealth jurisprudence. Actually, your letter resembles a press statement regurgitated from the words and talking points of leader of Opposition, Mr. Bharrat Jagdeo.

It is so highly fallacious and barren in the law, that it incompetently labours, but fails to tender the law which you claim was purportedly breached by the alleged issuance of a death certificate. In your unfortunate letter, you, Counsel, sought to misguidedly rely on Sections 33(1) and 33(5) of the Access to Information Act of 2018. However, this piece of legislation is not applicable to documents such as death, birth, marriage and Police Character certificates (clearance).

Also included in this category are passports, post mortem (autopsy) reports, and even Certificates of Good Standing issued by the Registrar of the High Court to lawyers. The media in Guyana, and Attorneys rely on post mortem reports every day to ascertain the cause of death of citizens. They also acquire death certificates, via the process prescribed by law.

Mr. Hanoman, you are aware that when a person dies, the body immediately becomes the property of the State until it is handed over to the family for burial. Counsel is also aware that under the Coroners Act, a post mortem must be conducted where a person dies suddenly, violently or accidentally, and that the post mortem examination and report are always open to the public. Consequently, death under the Laws of Guyana and the international community is not a private matter, and NO burial or cause of death can remain a secret under law.

The Evidence Act of Guyana, as counsel would have read numerous times, specifically treats a death certificate as a matter of PUBLIC RECORD; it is not a private document such as a mortgage contract with a Bank, a Bill of Sale for a vehicle, or someone’s medical records at a hospital or medical practitioner. As stated above, the fact of death is a public matter, and every citizen has the right to know why and how one of their community members died.

This is a matter of law, and counsel would have, on numerous occasions, examined or cross-examined government pathologists to ascertain the cause of death of persons during criminal trials, which are always conducted in the open, with the media present in Court. Public Records such as a death certificate is accessible by anyone, in accordance with the Laws of Guyana, Chapter 44:01, Section 49.

As an Attorney-at-Law, you are very well aware that the legal clerk in your office can attend to the Birth and Death Registry at any time, fill out the requisite Form, pay the fee, and obtain a Death Certificate for a perfect stranger. Lawyers across Guyana do this on a weekly basis for their clients, who are usually outside of Guyana. This is why your attack on the Registrar General is most unprofessional and unbecoming of an Attorney-at-Law.

Counsel is aware that the Registrar of Births and Deaths holds a Public Office, and performs a public function under law.  Counsel should also know that where the Registrar acts contrary to law, the recourse available is by way of Judicial Review, and not what appears to be a lawyer’s letter deliberately leaked to the media for cheap political gain before reaching the Registrar. Did counsel deliberately ignore the very Act which deals with Death Certificates, by placing in the public domain the very information he claims is private?

Section 37 of the Registration of Births and Deaths Act provides that upon the registration of the death of a person, the General Register of Deaths will remain open and accessible as a matter of Public Record to all citizens. The Registrar of Births and Deaths performs a similar function to the Registrar of Deeds, and the Registrar of Lands. Every Guyanese is aware that the Transport Register and the Land Register, like the General Register of Births and Deaths, are open to any member of the public desirous of examining the content of same, and obtaining copies upon the payment of the requisite fee. The Registration of Births and Deaths Act provides no offence where a Death certificate is issued; except where it is fake.

Moreover, no right-thinking Guyanese would come to the conclusion that the cause of death of Ms. Ramdass is a genetic problem affecting her family. We all had a close family member who died from some kind of sickness, but that does not mean that the remainder of our family will similarly be affected.

If counsel has a problem with this law, he must challenge it in the courts, or raise his concerns with the legislature, which enacted the law.
Further, Counsel’s reliance on the Access to Information Act (ATIA) to attack the Registrar General because of opposition politics is nothing more than reckless, appalling, and an outright abuse on the office of the Registrar. The ATIA was promulgated, and is applicable, where no existing procedure is available to access public records. This included reasons for the decisions of the National Tender Board in awarding contracts. However, under the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, detailed procedures and Forms are provided for the access to information including a Death Certificate.

On this basis, it is hard to understand why Counsel would engage in the obvious dishonesty of attempting to conflate an ATIA procedure into the Registration of Births and Deaths Act. This must have been an error on his part, or a deliberate fallacy in reasoning, aimed at inciting fear in the office of the Registrar, under the guise of a purported reckless indifference by that office for the ATIA mandatory procedures that were ignored.

Counsel must be aware that the ATIA speaks of accountability and transparency in decision making by State actors. The Registrar of Births and Deaths is not a decision maker with respect to transparency and accountability as envisaged under the ATIA. The Registrar of Births and Deaths enters, keeps and provides records relating to Births and Deaths. A refusal to grant a Birth or Death Certificate is subject to Judicial Review, and is not a criminal action or breach of law as counsel purports.

The family of the deceased must indeed be in great pain to read and hear the publication of their relative’s name in the media, especially the circumstances under which the information was published. Counsel has now aggravated this suffering with his spurious letter. However, when the Registry issues a document, the staff are performing a public-law function. If that document is then used in bad faith, or even with criminal intent, Counsel is aware that the course of redress is not a threatening purported legal letter to a public servant, but rather a report to the police, or he can also take civil action in the courts against the perpetrator of the bad act.

Finally, as to Counsel’s three (3) requests, the Registry has no legal authority to disclose the information of an applicant for a death certificate, albeit the application records remain a matter of public record.  Similarly, the Act does not envisage or permit the disclosure of copies of the receipts and any other particulars relating to the applicant.

Hence, Counsel should stop inventing stuff in his attempt to bully the Registrar General; it is “infra dig” to the legal profession. Instead of threatening Public Servants with purported lawyer’s letters, laced with political rhetoric, Counsel would best utilise his words and pen in a letter to the Commissioner of Information for access to the said records, an application which is bound to fail, since there is no basis upon which Counsel wants the said information.

Moreover, if the political opposition,  whose interests Counsel seems to be representing, has nothing to hide, why would they go this far to attempt to intimate and block an investigation by GECOM of allegations of electoral fraud? An innocent party would welcome an investigation to exonerate itself from criminal charges, not undermine or suppress it as Counsel is attempting to do, and at which he will fail.

Yours,
Richard Millington 
Attorney at Law 
Board Member of the Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy (CGID)