THE verdict is out and Justice Ravi Sukul has been disbarred, sacked for misleading his clients when filing appeals in a UK jurisdiction.The facts of his disbarment tells of an attorney who takes clients’ hard-earned money, knowing fully well that he was going to court only to make an appeal for leniency. He is found guilty of not providing frank, honest, legal representation to defend his client, but would simply beg for leniency in most of his cases. He lost his licence to practise law.
Here in Guyana, such an attorney would be a mocking stock; rather, he’d be called a spineless legal practitioner, one who cannot command any legal battle for his client; one who is eager to give up the ghost. Some may say that he is a plain stupid lawyer; one who lacks toughness to fight a case. I am speaking of the ‘liar-lawyer-type’ seen ever so often in Guyana; the type who would go to any length, using every illegal act known to Man to avoid just punishment for his guilty client, but he would never be sanctioned by either the state or the toothless poodle that is the Guyana Bar Association.
The type of attorney I have described is the one that is heralded as a “good lawyer” here in Guyana. However, the legal council in England sees it differently; they categorize such attorneys as vile and corrupt, subject to disbarment. In their estimation, an attorney of such vile persuasions should not be a practising barrister in their honourable court.
Those who are familiar with British Jurisprudence would know that Mr Sukul’s disbarment was not a hasty decision-making exercise; rather, it came about after years of careful observation of this man’s conduct. It would have been based on a number of complaints brought against him, as well as those facts revealed from a series of carefully documented cases observed by the legal luminaries in London.
So, those naysayers here in Guyana who would want to make their jaundiced view public, I dare them to prove the British Law Lords wrong on this one.
I love the way some opposition members go after the Government on the Roger Khan issue, accusing them of being in collusion with the drug kingpin. However, they are deliberately hiding the fact that Khan’s attorney is languishing in prison for his illegal undercover involvement in trying to silence potential witnesses who were scheduled to testify against his client.
Simels was audio-taped saying that potential witnesses should be “neutralized”, a word used in legal circles to mean “killed”. Simmels was sure to put this plan into action, but for the timely revelation of an audio tape. This corrupt attorney is now in jail. If I am not mistaken, he was given more jail time than his client, Khan. So, even the American legal system, which is oftentimes suspect in its judgments, is telling us here that we need to measure up to a higher level.
Yet we can remember another opposition lawyer was caught on tape, along with a then police commissioner, discussing the cover-up of crimes such as murder and planting drugs on someone, with no adverse consequences to them.
So, let us focus for a moment on Guyana and the actions of Attorney at Law, Nigel Hughes, who is known to have broken every rule in the book when it comes to legal representation for his clients, chief of which is the failure to disclose his relations with a jury foreman in a high-profile murder case. Right now, he is embroiled in a bitter lawsuit with school owner, Mayfield French, popularly called ‘Mae’s’, wherein he is alleged to have misled the client into believing that a property she bought from him was free of debt when, to the contrary, said property was hugely in debt and should not have been sold.
A property that has a huge lien on it must not be sold. Hughes knows this all too well, being a practising lawyer of many years. But, he is so accustomed to carrying out these practices that it seems hard for him to stop now. It is absolutely amazing the things that are allowed, and the people that can do it in a country called Guyana. I make mention of the dastardly deeds allegedly committed by Attorney-at-Law Nigel Hughes; and why he is not disbarred or languishing in prison is anyone’s guess.
He knows he can get away with it, because those in the criminal community and the corrupt Bar Association are in collusion with him, the reasons being that Hughes is supposedly standing up for the “rights of the Black Man”. Well, I have news for them: I would like them to take a page out of the British Law Books and come up to a higher rung in the legal ladder.
The scenario I have painted earlier speaks of a legal system that has standards, and holds high the things that are considered sacred. The British are upholders of high ideals, while in the Caribbean, we look up to corrupt attorneys and seek ways in which to accommodate them.
The Guyana system, where the discipline of rogue attorneys are concerned, paints an ugly picture; one that reeks of corruption. The more you are corrupt, the higher you go; the more you are esteemed. It is high time for this nonsense to stop.
I close by saying this: Seeing that Justice Ravi Sukul was disbarred from serving at the local Bar here, what is the position of Nigel Hughes? What goes for Sukul should also be applied to Hughes, because no one should be above the law.
The Bar Association in Guyana is not going to do it; so I call on the attorney general to take the initiative and have this matter tabled in the High Court, and see to it that this man be disbarred, if not incarcerated. Minister Nandlall needs to see to it that some respectability is brought back into our courts.
Written By Neil Adams