AN endangered species, I was persuaded, used to be confined to creatures not on the level of homo-sapiens genus. However, given the rarefied atmosphere of democratic polity to which Guyana was forcibly returned in 1992, personal experiences since 1993 have driven me to conclude that, that condition of endangerment has been extended to me on account of my ethnicity. The fourth estate has now appointed itself to the dart-gun loaded with the venom of calumny, innuendo, political legerdemain and misinformation, targeting a particular section of the population among whom I find myself by sheer accident of birth.

Without any self-indulgence in semaphoric aspirations I was called to public service in 1993 by the late President, Dr. C.B. Jagan when he appointed me as a permanent member of the Public Service Appellate Tribunal. The other members, both qualified lawyers but of another ethnicity at the time, are now deceased. We were paid from the public purse but I felt constrained by embarrassment to donate my salary for the entire tenure to a Fund for the Sick Children established at my instance, but the monies therein were under the control of three persons appointed by the then Minister of Health. During my tenure, a current trade union dinosaur unsuccessfully petitioned Dr. Jagan to remove me from office for reasons best known to himself and others. My recollection is that the Secretariat dealt with very few matters and at no time did the Tribunal meet to hear more than four Appeals on average for each of the three years. The chairman received a total package that was equivalent to that of a High Court Judge. A semi-visually impaired economist would, in normal circumstances, question the value for money borne by the tax- payers of this country for this review process.
Once again, unsolicited, the esteemed honour of appointment to act as Attorney-General was conferred upon me in 1996 by President C.B. Jagan. Malcontents and other low achievers in the legal profession expressed their unsubstantiated opposition. Notwithstanding this, my work must have met the approval of the then Presidential Secretariat and its advisers in the light of the offer of H.E. President C.B. Jagan to appoint me Chief Justice when the incumbent Attorney-General and Minister of Legal Affairs would have resumed duties.
I was privileged to be present when the then incumbent Cabinet Minister raised an objection on the most uninformed ground and I heard nothing thereafter, but had the honour to attend the appointment of the next Chief justice. I later returned to private practice.
Consequent upon her accession to the Presidency, H.E. Janet Jagan invited me to replace the incumbent in December 1997 two hours before her new Cabinet was to be sworn in. Again, this unsolicited elevation was the cause of much criticism by social outcasts, parvenus and others pursuing a personal vendetta. I was privileged to serve until the end of May 2001 even though I had signalled to the H.E. President B. Jagdeo that I had preferred to return to private practice after the March 2001 general elections.
In 2008, without applying, I was invited to join the Bench of the court of Appeal. Apart from the acting Chief Justice, I was the only Senior Counsel so invited, yet my appointment prior to the other two appointees was met with resentment by a dysfunctional wannabee, who had the gall to write a letter to the press. My father warned me in the 1960s that “some people will envy you for the excellence you achieve.” It is public knowledge that I was appointed Attorney-General and Minister of Legal Affairs in February 2009, again unsolicited, and so served until December 2011 when, I sought refuge in retirement after almost four decades in the profession. However, in June 2013, I was again persuaded to fill the newly created Office of the Commissioner of Information and duly responded. Since then a reluctant, if not involuntary returnee to Guyana declared in the press that I was a ‘Die-hard PPP’ and ought not to have been so appointed. Most disappointingly, I read a demeaning editorial comment in SN. 0f 16/12/13, and am flummoxed by its rationale, if any, given the prescriptions and manifest obligations articulated in the Access to Information Act 2011. Had this office been allocated to a being of a different ethnic background the foregoing invectives would not have been an option.
Let me make it pristinely clear that intimidation and victimisation of Guyanese of a particular ethnic hue will never cause me to withdraw from the current developmental trajectory of Guyana and until such time as I see it appropriate to demit office, barring the statutory prescriptions, I shall not countenance any terrestrial intervention relegating me to an endangered species.
The poet W.E. Henley could very well have had me in mind as the template for his universally acclaimed INVICTUS and ironically, S.N may by subscribing to the “Quote of the day” by John Dryden located at the bottom of the very editorial page, wish to do the honourable thing that may erase this travesty.
“Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the honour of the shade,
And yet the menances of the years
Find, and shall find, me unafraid”

JUSTICE CHARLES R. RAMSON,
Commissioner of Information