Dear Editor
THESE are revealing times, for the great contradictions that their daily dynamics continue to expose. In the once morally-minded voices that had for years in Guyana, pretended to be purveyors of national morality and unblemished truth, they had once sounded their voices against all forms of venalities which had reduced this country to the fiefdom of the few that had comprised the political elite.

One of these voices, then considered and acknowledged as perhaps the conscience of the chorus of national protest, has since 2015 somersaulted like a pole vaulter, breathtakingly, and is now one of the leading “spokespersons/adviser’’ on oil and gas; “legal seer” on all constitutional matters for and on behalf of the opposition Peoples Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C); which party he had so vehemently criticised when it had the responsibilities of governance. How times, of an epoch making and evolving nature, can change the souls of men in the usual opportunistic fashion. But this is another story for another letter.

Recently, like a political knight in shining armour, and defending the now well-known treacherous cause of what has clearly come to be his natural political enclave, the PPP/C; this voice decided that it was his duty to challenge the coalition cabinet’s right to adjudicate on contracts that were in excess of $15M.

Editor, we all know the genesis of Christopher Ram’s court challenge, but it is the legal premise on which it was done, that has cost him a whopping $300,000 in costs as per dismissal, and also what amounted to a judicial reprimand – that the no-confidence motion vote that had, at that time been ruled by the Speaker as having been properly carried, had resulted in the defeat of the government, which rendered it unable to sanction contracts in excess of $15M. Of course, to give weight to his dishonest application, he selectively referenced 54(1) of the Procurement Act, because of the authority that such bestowed on cabinet to review and approve all contracts in excess of $15M.

Editor, conveniently he omitted the mention of 54(6), a fact which the Madame Chief Justice pointed out in her reasons for rejection of his Fixed Date Application. Further, any GCE A Level Law student reading and applying basic logic and reasoning to the language of (54)6, would understand that it has, since its passage, reposed such authority in the remit of the Public Procurement Commission. The latter realisation would have been the immediate realisation by Ram’s lawyer, causing them to withdraw his challenge.

But this is Ram, allowing his new-found zeal to show off his “legal erudition and expertise of the law”, which he and others, acting for and on behalf of the PPP/C which they now embrace, have continued to display for entirely opportunistic ends. This is a more than clear example of the legal extremism, which is being attempted by this “oil and gas expert” et al, as they visit every deceptive nook and cranny in their efforts to abort the office of the coalition government.

Though one would agree that it is simply “trying a thing”, it is a desecration to legal jurisprudence.

Regards
Earl Hamilton