–says cases lost due to inadequate representation by legal team

PRESIDENT David Granger has come out in support of Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Basil Williams, contending that the court cases he lost were due mainly to inadequate representation by his legal team.
On Friday, the President said while the State has lost many cases, there is a reasonable expectation as an attorney to lose cases. He described Williams as a “hard-working” and “very experienced lawyer.”

“No one wants to lose cases and as far as I can see, he is a very experienced lawyer and once you go to the court, you have to expect that the outcomes may not necessarily be in your favour…you can’t win everything,” he said, noting that the attorney general has worked hard since taking up the post in May 2015.
The attorney general has received much criticism over the past few months for the number of legal cases lost recently. Last month, the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) dismissed an appeal by the attorney general (AG) of Guyana in the $446M contractual dispute between the government and Dipcon Engineering Limited.

President Granger does not believe the attorney general should be blamed for the failure of the government to consistently win major cases in the courts, but attention should be paid to the type of representation made in the past.
“He has had like some other ministers, has had to make internal changes in his ministry in order to get the best quality representation.
“I do not feel that in the past we had the best representation and some of the cases which we inherited were lost before we started, because the representation was inadequate,” the President stated.

The head-of-state said attention must also be placed on Williams’s team.
Moreover, President Granger said that though government has lost several big cases, there are others which are still pending in the courts.
He posited that had there been better representation, then the government “would not have lost so much money because of certain claims made against the Government.”
“So I won’t blame the minister of legal affairs, I think that within that ministry there were some persons who were not doing their best for the Government of Guyana.”