Justice is not blind in Guyana

THE NEWS in the press on Sunday, February 16, 2014, when it was reported that Appeal Court Judge, Rabi Sukul was disbarred in the UK for misleading his client in appealing a case was really a surprise. Immediately, and rightly so, the chancellor called for his resignation.However, it has raised other issues plaguing our society. One prominent lawyer in Guyana has been behaving as if he is above the law. Sadly, he has been getting away with this for a long time without the Bar Association, nor the top echelons of the judiciary saying anything about it.
During the reign of the crime spree and the carnival of killings in Buxton, a murder took place at the Hamilton Gas Station. Nigel Hughes was somehow nearby, and he went into the station and removed the tape from the recorder which had recorded the event.
While that appears to be legal to some, as a layman, it appears highly irregular to tamper with evidence at a crime scene. Hughes was not called in for questioning by the police, nor did the Bar Association say anything about this.
No doubt, that action emboldened him to do even more mischief, as he was a central figure in instigating the events in Linden against the cutting of the subsidy on electricity in the township. The people were misled by many in the opposition parties, and three of them, unfortunately, lost their lives. Hughes was central in that.
None of the organisers and instigators were ever questioned; no one either in the Bar Association or anywhere else sanctioned them for the lawlessness which even led to the burning of a school and the death of three protestors.
Further emboldened, the AFC, of which Hughes is the chairman, was part of the instigators of the Agricola incident in which many Indo-Guyanese were the targets for robbery and molestation.
Not one of the leaders of the two opposition parties were ever called in to be questioned; no one was charged.
More recently, it was revealed that Mr. Hughes, who defended the accused charged with murdering 11 persons at Lusignan, had been the lawyer for the Foreman on the Jury for some six years. The jury brought in a “not guilty” verdict, even though the prosecution had an eyewitness, a member of the gang, who, by way of a plea-bargain, gave evidence against the big killers.
Where are the Bar Association and the leaders of the judiciary in all of this? Why are they so deafening in their silence?
Just recently, we saw that Mr. Hughes is once again involved in another matter; however, we will not comment on this, since it is in the courts, but it relates to property transaction with a school.
The pattern is clear: for the Bar Association, justice is not blind. Had Hughes been a supporter of the PPP or an Indian (even neutral in his/her political views), we would not have heard the end of this.
While Sukul is paying here for what he did in the UK, and rightly so, Hughes is allowed to do as he likes, without a peep coming out of the officials in the legal profession, including the Bar Association.
What Sukul did pales into insignificance compared to Nigel Hughes.
Written By Rebecca Constance

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