AFTER months of wild allegations, government is hoping that the matter regarding Home Affairs Minister, Clement Rohee and his right to speak in the Parliament will be finally put to rest, especially now that the much-anticipated Linden Commission of Inquiry (CoI) report has cleared him of all charges.

Attorney-General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Mr Anil Nandlall, during a recent interview on the National Communications Network (NCN), said the CoI report, the rulings of the Chief Justice and that of the Speaker of the National Assembly, Mr Raphael Trotman, all concatenate to confirm Minister Rohee’s right to speak, and declare attempts to prevent him from doing so as unconstitutional and unlawful.

Consultations and consensus
The Attorney-General recalled that after the tragedy which occurred on July 18 in Linden, the Opposition wasted no time in publicly asserting that the minister, under whose purview the security sector falls, had some involvement in the fatal shooting of the three protestors.
“It was alleged publicly by senior functionaries in both the AFC and the APNU that Minister Rohee gave specific and direct orders to the police to shoot, and it was claimed by these people, publicly, that they have evidence implicating Minister Rohee,” he said.
When the establishment of the CoI was announced by President Donald Ramotar, it was made clear that all Parties will be on board. The government’s position was that the Commission must be as consensual as possible in terms of its composition, as well as the Terms of Reference (TORs) by which the said Commission will be guided.
In this regard, consultations were held with the Opposition in the crafting of the TORs. During this exercise the Opposition insisted on a specific TOR to inquire into Minister Rohee’s involvement as it relates to the directives that he purportedly issued to the police. This call was heeded by the government.
The Opposition also insisted that the Commission must include a foreign/independent component, and this too, was agreed to by the Government. As such, three of the five Commissioners were foreign legal luminaries, who were selected subsequent to a transparently conducted consultative process.
The Commissioners are: Justice Lensley Wolfe and Senior Counsel Keith. D Knight of Jamaica and Senior Counsel Dana Seetahal of Trinidad and Tobago all of whom were nominated by the CARICOM Secretariat, and from Guyana, Justices Claudette Singh and Cecil Kennard.
“The Government did not hand-pick these people. We engaged in a process which involved CARICOM … and they were selected after dialogue with the Opposition. So as far as possible, we tried at both the embryonic stages as well as when we were actually bringing the Commission into being …to ensure that all the political parties had an input,” the AG explained.

Preempting and reneging
Before the Commission began its work and notwithstanding all of the agreements that were reached at the level of the inter-Party dialogue, the Opposition passed a No Confidence Motion against the Minister in the National Assembly, specifically because of his presumed involvement in the shootings.

Minister Nandlall recalled that during the debate on this Motion in the House, members on the Opposition benches asserted that they have evidence to substantiate their allegations against the Minister. However, to date, no such evidence has been provided.

“The Chief Justice has exonerated Minister Rohee and his right to speak, the Speaker has done similarly and the CoI has exonerated him from any blame whatsoever,” the AG said.

Compensation
In terms of compensation, the CoI recommended that the family of Ron Somerset should receive $2M and $3M each for the families of Shemroy Bouyea and Allan Lewis. The government has since made it clear, that these recommendations will be abided by.
However, the Opposition Parties are now of the view that the recommended sums are inadequate.

The AG said that one cannot disregard the individual and collective experience of the people who constituted the Commission, which was appointed by no less a person than the Head of State himself. As such, it is incumbent on the President and his Government to comply with the report in every respect.

He added that the lawyers who represented the families of the deceased persons and others who claimed compensation had ample opportunities to adduce evidence relevant to the issue of compensation.
“In any inquiry, decisions are arrived at based on existing evidence. It is impossible for anyone to contend that human life has a particular monetary value…over the years, legal principles had to have been evolved which are normally employed in assessing compensation when death, destruction to properties and personal injuries result. These principles are well-known to people in the legal profession,” the Legal Affairs Minister said.

The compensatory awards were not made in isolation; but rather, they were made in relation to particular facts and circumstances.
Responding to Regional Chairman, Region 10, Sharma Solomon who said that the criteria used by the CoI to determine the compensation for the deceased was flawed, the AG stated that as a layman, Solomon is not qualified to second-guess the decision made by the Commissioners.

“These Commissioners include a former Chancellor of the Judiciary of Guyana, a former Chief Justice of Jamaica, and a Justice of Appeal of Guyana to name only three; these eminent jurists would have together heard and determined hundreds of cases of this type during their careers and would have done so with distinction. It is simply presumptuous for Solomon and others to advance such a contention,” the Legal Affairs Minister said.

He added that Solomon’s comments are clearly based on his political agenda and the fact that he has no appreciation of legal principles.

“Sharma Solomon should pay attention to the part of the report where it states that the organisers of this event must bear some responsibility for what transpired…this compensation will be paid using taxpayers’ dollars, which could have been used in the education and health sectors. The government now has to divert this money away from such important projects to pay for compensation for something it did not organise,” he emphasised.
He further explained that should those who are aggrieved by the quantum of the compensatory awards; approach the court to seek larger sums, then the amount of money that was recommended and paid must be taken into account.
However, the government also reserves the right to go to court and file proceedings, having regard to the fact that the report holds the organisers of the protest partially responsible for the tragic outcome.
The AG explained that in addition to the compensation which has to be paid for those who died, the State is also burdened with the obligation to pay millions of dollars to those whose private properties were destroyed and will have to bear the cost to rebuild the State properties which were burnt and destroyed by the protestors. All of this is in addition to the huge cost the State had to endure for the Commission itself.
“Is this fair for the taxpayers who had nothing to do with this protest and may not have even supported it… their monies to be paid as compensation for the recklessness of the organisers of this event?” he questioned.

Police role
No direct evidence was provided to implicate the police during the incident. The AG explained that the Commission had to, in a circuitous way; embark on a process to circumstantially link the police to the shooting.
He reminded that, “no direct evidence linked the police; no eyewitness, no guns, no bullets, and no other evidence whatsoever directly linked the police to the shooting.”
The Commissioners found that the police were the only people with the ability to use lethal force on the scene on the day in question and there was evidence that they did use such force. Those pieces of evidence were used cumulatively to implicate the police in the shooting in a circumstantial way.
The police had employed a series of strategies including the loud hailer and tear gas, in an attempt to get the protestors to retreat before resorting to lethal force.
“If the organisers had marshalled and controlled their crowd in a manner required by law and ensured that the permission which the police granted was observed, then this entire unfortunate episode could have been avoided,” Minister Nandlall said.
He added that, “this is why the organisers were held to be partially responsible and therefore should pay some of the compensation that they are asking for. These persons include: leaders of the Trade Unions, leaders of the AFC and APNU and other persons masquerading as human rights and social activists.”

Prior to July 18
Minister Nandlall described Solomon’s criticism that the CoI did not deal with the events prior to July 18 as completely misplaced.
He explained that during the discussions while the TORs were being negotiated, both Opposition Parties insisted that the Commission must not inquire into the events preceding July 18.
“Obviously if the inquiry went prior to July 18, their provocative role in what transpired would have been exposed. In fact, the Government wanted this to come out, because we know how this event started,” he said.
This situation started after the Government and the APNU arrived at an agreement that new electricity tariffs are to be imposed in Linden and how they were to be implemented and over what period.
A joint statement to this effect was prepared by the Government and APNU and read to the Parliament by Prime Minister Samuel Hinds during the budget debate.
“This statement even had the handwriting of the Opposition Leader on it; we have a copy of it and can produce it. There was no objection from the Opposition when the statement was read,” the AG disclosed.
He went on to explain that about an hour- and-a- half after, this statement was read without any objection, the Demerara Waves published a story stating that APNU sold out Lindeners. This was followed by a similar statement by AFC Leader, Khemraj Ramjattan.
“It was only then that the Leader of the Opposition stood up in the Parliament and said that the Prime Minister misrepresented the Opposition. This is what led to the protest action in Linden, all of this would have been revealed and that is why they did not want an inquiry into the events leading up to July 18,” the AG said. (GINA)