Dear Editor

FOLLOWING the recent court decisions resulting from the no-confidence motion, there has been unprecedented commentary in the public square about our courts and judges.  While I firmly and thoroughly believe in open discussion about matters of public interest, I am more than a little concerned about the tone and tenor of much of the commentary about our judiciary following the recent decisions. The tone has been shrill, and the tenor mean-spirited, personal, and irresponsible.

Because of the way that the United States dominates international airwaves, that country has tremendous influence on behaviour and attitudes around the world, but especially here in the English-speaking Caribbean. I hope that some of the public comments by Donald Trump about the American judiciary have not begun to take root here in Guyana.  This is a trend we must vigorously resist! When Judge Gonzalo Curiel was assigned a case involving a claim against Trump University, candidate Trump said the judge would not be impartial because he was Mexican (the judge is American by birth) and did not like Trump’s immigration policies.  Later as President, Trump referred to federal Judge Jon Tigar as an “Obama Judge” after Judge Tigar had ruled against the Trump administration on an asylum issue.

Trump’s comment on Judge Tigar was so outrageous that it provoked the exceptionally rare occurrence of a public rebuke from a sitting chief justice of the United States.  Chief Justice John Roberts had to remind Americans that the judiciary did not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges, but rather had an “extraordinary group of dedicated men and women doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them.”

In Trump’s view, any judge that disagreed with his legal position is motivated not by a review of law and precedent, but by some extra judicial animus against Trump.

There are many interesting and novel points of law raised in the trilogy of cases that arose from the no-confidence motion. The constitutional issues are critical and need to be ventilated.  Public discourse of these issues could be healthy and should be encouraged.  However, we seem bent on missing the opportunity for edifying comment and are opting instead for the cheap attention-grabbing lines that appeal to the basest instincts in our plural society.  In many ways, comments about the decisions of the chief justice and Justices of Appeal in the no- confidence motion cases reflect the same type of assault on the integrity of the judiciary as Trump’s intemperate attacks on U.S. judges.  Comments here in the public square in Guyana are almost completely lacking in serious analysis, but are full of political, misogynistic and sometimes racial vitriol.  I hope that our responsible public figures would resist the temptation to be Trump-like. After all, to paraphrase U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts, we should not see our judges as APNU judges or PPP judges, but as a group of men and women doing their level best in these politically charged circumstances to do equal right to those appearing before them. For that we should say thank you.

Regards

B. Mayo Robertson