Dear Editor,
GUYANA’S Attorney General, Mr Basil Williams, has forcefully articulated how successive PPP administrations calculatedly politicised Guyana’s judiciary into dysfunctionalism.

Alarmingly, the dysfunctionalism to which he alluded, potentially predeterminedly obstructed the course of justice. These injustices and prejudices constitute consequential violations of citizens’ constitutional rights. I am living testimony of such politically engineered injustice.
I am the plaintiff in Rickford Burke V. Guyana National Newspapers Limited, Kwame Mc Coy, National Communications Networks Inc, Et, Al: Case No 2013 No. 38/W, Demerara County. This is a libel case in which the defendants, eight media entities and/or practitioners associated with the PPP, maliciously slandered, defamed and libelled me.

My lawsuit has inexplicably been in continuance in the Supreme Court for five years, notwithstanding several letters and submissions to then Chief Justice (Ag) Mr Ian Chang, from me and my Counsel, Mr Nigel Hughes, for a trial date. The matter has deliberately been left to languish in a state of dormancy, for no judicial reason, by “gatekeepers” in the judiciary who act to protect a certain “special interests” in breach of the constitutional obligation to uphold the law and act as fair and dispassionate arbiters of justice.

My case has been impeded, notwithstanding the straightforward, indisputable facts and circumstances. Between January 29, 2013 and February 1, 2013, and thereafter, the defendants, acting as political agents, knowingly published and/or broadcasted flagrantly false, malicious and defamatory information about me. Upon the direction of my counsel, the Guyana Chronicle newspaper and National Communications Network subsequently retracted their false stories and apologised to me. The other defendants refused.

The Chronicle’s retraction and apology were nugatory, as the newspaper refused to remove its libellous article from its website ,causing it to be republished by media in the Caribbean Region and the United States. This article, which is globally accessible, remains published on the Chronicle’s website as of today, in defiance of repeated demands from my counsel for its removal. Moreover, it remains published although a presiding Judge in 2013 inquired of the raison d’etre for its continued publication.

With impunity, the Chronicle, backed by the PPP government, flaunted the law and demonstrated contempt for the courts. Its nefarious, malicious, premeditated intent was expressly to slander me, assassinate my character and cause permanent injury to my character and professional reputation, and no lawsuit or court would deter this mission – Its maliciousness evidently inspired by a confidence in its protectors. After all, even the application for an emergency injunction has not yet been heard,five years later.

The libellous publication achieved its intended consequence. I was smeared and defamed. My character and professional reputation suffered irreparable harm. I was forced to defend my good name and reputation as well as correct the record in publications in Guyana, throughout the Caribbean and in the United States. The retraction and apology by the defendants are an admission of guilt and liability. The defendants’ actions were not only malicious and intractable, but evidently contemptuous of the law and the court.

Despite such incontestable evidence and overwhelming malevolence, I have been denied my day in court, justice and my constitutional right to judicial remedies. The practical effect of the unfathomable five-year delay and obstruction of my lawsuit, is a perversion of the course of justice and the constitution.
Dr Martin Luther King, Jr admonished us that “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” I have the patience of a saint. I await my day in court!

Regards
Rickford Burke
Plaintiff