AG proposed, AFC supported, APNU opposed amendments to the Summary Jurisdiction Act

ATTORNEY General (AG) and Minister of Legal Affairs, Mr. Anil Nandlall, yesterday set before the National Assembly amendments to the Summary Jurisdiction Act in an attempt to reduce the abuses of the judicial system through prolongation of the administration of justice.

The AG noted in his remarks that there has been “rampant abuse” of the judicial process because of the automatic effect of filing an appeal on a magistrate’s decision.

Such an abuse, he said, would be remedied in the bill, which would not affect the right of a litigant to challenge a decision through appeal.

“Nor does it deny the litigant a capacity to acquire a stay in the Magistrate’s Court,” Nandlall continued. “This bill has instead put a time frame on the length of that stay.”

Not acting alone, Minister Nandlall sought the expert advice of President of the Guyana Bar Association, Mr. Ronald Burch-Smith; President of the Guyana Women Lawyers’ Association, Ms. Simone Ramlall; and President of the Berbice Bar Association, Ms. Deena Panday.

Minister Nandlall said these representative organisations of the legal profession lauded the intention of the amendment bill, and two of them registered their recommendations to allow respectively for four and six weeks’ stay of execution.

Crafted into the bill, the AG said, was the resolve of having a four-week stay of execution, as proposed by the women lawyers’ representative group.

Responding to the possibility of the bill having an adverse effect in the administering of justice in legitimate claims, the AG said, “This bill does not, in any way, affect the right of any litigant to challenge a decision by way of appeal. Nor does it deny the litigant a capacity to acquire a stay in the Magistrate’s Court.”

The AG affirmed that the amendments would establish a timeframe on the length of stay, and he pointed out that while appeals can be filed if a litigant is dissatisfied with a decision taken by the courts, such an appeal “does not operate as a stay of execution of the decision against which the appeal is filed.”

He said that both the Full Court Act and the Court of Appeal Act, within the High Court structure, provide expressly that an appeal does not operate as a stay of execution.

LANDLORD TENANT
Recognising the role of lawyers in stalling justice, the Attorney General pointed out that, in some cases, lawyers are fully aware that their clients might not have any likelihood of a successful appeal, but on the advice of the client they still file an appeal at the appropriate time, intending later to withdrawing same.

“So you have a proliferation of appeals being filed unmeritoriously with the ultimate objective of simply denying the Magistrate Courts’ decisions,” Nandlall added.

Some tenants, recognising that the Law is structured to favour them above the landlord, have damaged property and avoided payments of rent, since “the landlord, in establishing possession in possession proceedings, has an unusually high and inequitable burden to discharge…compared to the tenant,” Nandlall added.

The case is further compounded in cases when magistrates have been so lenient that they have issued six-month, one-year and two-year stays of execution, which allow for the tenant to file an appeal after the period would have come to an end.

“He (the tenant) puts a hold on the man’s (landlord’s) ability to enjoy a property that he has title for,” AG Nandlall remarked.

Commenting on the initial provision, Minister Nandlall observed thus: “The substantive act being amended is an act that we [Guyana] received as part of our colonial history since 1919.” He added that the law had been amended several times, but is now approaching 100 years since its introduction.

The Attorney General identified the Summary Jurisdiction Act as being insubstantial to current times, and has sought to fine-tune such bills to fit the current circumstances of the Guyanese society.

In Favour
Alliance For Change (AFC) Member of Parliament Mr. Khemraj Ramjattan rose in favour of the motion, referring to the 80-year history of the Principal Summary Jurisdiction Act in his presentation.

Ramjattan bemoaned that an extension of stay, which prevents a tenant from being evicted, often results in “the injustice…to the landlord.”

The AFC leader expressed his support for the Attorney General’s amendments with a proposal that the period for a stay of execution be extended from four weeks to six weeks, thus creating a parallel to the stay of execution process that exists in the High Court.

AG Nandlall, on the advice of the Speaker of the National Assembly, Mr. Raphael Trotman, moved that the stay of execution be altered from four weeks to six weeks.

Denied
But A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) Member of Parliament Mr. Basil Williams spoke against the amendment. He cited the saying, ‘If it’s not broken, why fix it?’

Williams asserted that while the bill should provide for magistrates to give a stay of execution, such a stay must range between one and three months.

“I suggest that the magistrate should have the discretion to impose a stay of execution (of) not less than a month and not more than three months,” Williams said.

(By Derwayne Wills)