Dear Editor,
I REFER to a letter in KN, Wednesday, July12, 2017 under caption “Curry and roti, roti and curry argument of a Guyanese lawyer” by the name “Nand Puran.” If as I suspect “Nand Puran” is a lawyer, would the real Nand Puran please step forward and present your legal argument for the whole country and the world to read. The court is a rather cloistered forum where mistakes can remain unrealised. My arguments (as invariably there are) are unassailable irrefutable . The letter evinces a persistence of an obstinacy in the outrage that LRC and CLR law reports are matters of semantics. And, there being a recognition of the unassailability of my legal argument, you (“Nand Puran”) resorts to casting and insinuating improper motives to my modus vivendi (which I readily admit and make no apology whatsoever) of when I was a magistrate recreating at the Chinese restaurant on Sheriff Street. (what you called my “annex”- not my word, yours’.) it is only a naïve person who would suppose (or hoped to be believed) that a person of my intellect would be so impetuous as to choose such a place of openness and public glare as a venue to commit the kind of impropriety you are cowardly insinuating. I was a “ladies man”.(many would like to be but lack the requisite dominant personality). Being at my “annex” was my relatively inexpensive and inconspicuous way of womanising (and that is no damn business of yours “Nand Puran”.
So, I turn now to the matters of serious legal import in your letter. Here is a simple test as to how wrong, misconceived and inexcusable it must be for a lawyer to treat and consider LRC and CLR as “curry and roti, roti and curry”. (a rather pathetic bemusing attempt at culinary analogy). If when arguing a case before the court (Judge or Magistrate) and you rely heavily on a case reported only in a volume of the CLR (not coincidentally also in the LRC reports) would you take to Court a LRC volume to cite and quote from, only if you are idiotic and a comedian. Would you in citing the report of the case on which you so heavily rely, tell the judge/magistrate, LRC, rather than CLR? Only if you are idiotic and comical. The courts (much less the Chief Justice’s) is no kangaroo court. It is no restaurant where if you, intending to order “curry and roti” it makes absolutely no difference as to what you will be served, if you tell the waitress- “roti and curry.” The argument that the matter was argued in Court and the matter proceeded with and the conservatory order granted on the footing that all the dramatis personae (ie the Hon Chief Justice (ag); the state counsel representing the AG and SOCU, and Mr. Nandlall) were fully cognisant and aware that the subject matter of the application for the conservatory order were LRCs and not CLRs is neither credible nor supportable.
If that were so, then it was nothing but a comedy of errors. Nandlall’s and theirs’ (mis) understanding is not to be attributed to SOCU. Besides, in that adversarial setting the State Counsel were quite right not to wise up but instead to leave Mr. Nandlall in his state of confusion (or perhaps ignorance) as to LRC and CLRs (this caused no prejudice to SOCU). And the learned CJ (ag) was right (being a civil matter) not to get into the arena. In the circumstances she granted Mr. Nandlall just what he prayed for. He, could not order (using this analogy) “curry and roti” (ie a conservatory order for CLR); and, expect to be served dhallpuri and dhall (ie conservatory order for LRCs). And “Nand Puran”, I hold no brief from Basil Williams, SC the Attorney General.
I recall an exchange of letters in the SN between myself and Mr. Nandlall as long ago as January 2002 over the appointment of Mr. Manning (rather than Panday) as the Prime Minister in the tied General Elections in T&T.
And “NandPuran” if as you claim in your opening words of your letter: “I am not a lawyer”, then you are a pretender and imposter to legal knowledge; and you are intellectually in no position to know whether my legal views are “idiotic”; and it follows as day follows night that accordingly, your opinion is like unto “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing”. And this tale extends to your apparent fetish for rumour mongering and your “more revelations will come soon” with which you end your letter.
But, I end mine with high standards. Former Justice of Appeal Claudette Singh can write and defend herself. But if I were a practising lawyer and were I retained in this matter (even if in an advisory capacity) I would take and establish the point of law (as a preliminary point/point in limine) that the Court/Judge has and had, no power or jurisdiction whatsoever to grant a “conservatory order” which is in substance and effect, analogous to an INJUNCTION against the State (the Guyana Police Force in which SOCU is a unit); and, that such conservatory order would, and ought to have been refused were the provision of section 16(6) of the State Liability And Proceedings Act, 1984 Cap: 6:05 brought to the attention of the learned CJ(ag). Section 16(6) provides relevantly: “Where in ANY proceedings against the state any relief is sought… the Court shall NOT grant an injunction… but may in lieu thereof make an order declaratory of the rights of the parties.” What is so prohibited directly, is equally indirectly prohibited in the form of some interlocutory conservatory order (ie “CO”), the effect of which (unwittingly or otherwise) is to in, and by, a civil court, impede or frustrate the presentation of the prosecution’s case in a CRIMINAL trial and preempt a finding of fact it must be the duty of the criminal court to make. But these technicalities and idiosyncracies of the law would be beyond your brain grade. And if the CO ought to be discharged as void for want of jurisdiction (section 16(6)) it can only be a pyrrhic victory to boast in “Nand Puran’s” letter that a “High Court Judge has impounded the challenged search warrant” (ie the SW which SOCU abortively sought to execute recently). It is up to the State Counsel representing SOCU to take the point of jurisdiction and thereupon persuade the discharge of the CO. When that happens, there would be no colour of legal basis for impounding (if in fact that has happened) the search warrant. And by the way, it is not competent for courts to grant interlocutory/interim declaration of rights order.
Regards
Maxwell E. Edwards
Attorney – at – Law
(Former Magistrate)