THE Attorney General Chambers has filed a notice of appeal challenging an order made by Justice Priya Sewnarine-Beharry for Winston Jordan, not in his capacity as Finance Minister, to pay an outstanding amount of US$2,228,400.67 to Trinidad construction company, Dipcon, by July 8, 2019, or go to jail.

There were eight grounds listed in the notice of appeal which indicated where the Learned Trial Judge erred and misdirected herself in law, the AG chambers contended in the notice of appeal.

Justice Sewnarine-Beharry made the order on June 24, 2019, in the High Court which stemmed from a contempt motion filed on behalf of the company by Attorney-at-law Timothy Jonas in May of this year. The award to the company was first handed down by Justice of Appeal, Rishi Persaud, on October 21, 2015, and, while the government has challenged the award, Jonas moved to the court with contempt proceedings against Jordan.
“The ruling was erroneous and the judge committed a specific illegality when she made an order against the minister in his private capacity and not in his official capacity as Minister of Finance, thus robbing him of the protection he is entitled to under Section 14 of the State Liability and Proceedings Act Chapter 6:05 wherein no coercive order can be made against him,” Attorney General Basil Williams told the Guyana Chronicle following the order by the court.

The first ground of appeal stated is that when the Learned Trial Judge exercised jurisdiction and proceeded to hear the application for contempt against Jordan in his private and personal capacity for monies alleged to be owed by the State and Government of Guyana and when she improperly proceeded with the hearing of an application for contempt against Jordan when no action, cause, judgement, order or proceedings was made or issued in the personal name of Winston Jordan.

Other grounds included when Justice Sewnarine-Beharry failed to appreciate that contempt proceedings were coercive in nature and that such an order could not be made against the officer of the State, but in particular against Jordan privately when no act was done by him in his private capacity for contempt to prevail against him.

Grounds also stated that she omitted to set aside the entire proceedings as void abinitio because the application was bad in law and misconceived and in clear breach of the provisions of Section 3, Section 3 (6) and Section 14 of the State Liability Proceedings Act Chapter 6:05 of the Laws of Guyana.

The notice of appeal also indicated that she omitted to set aside in the previous manner the entire proceedings void abinitio for the same reasons and in breach of the same Act of the Law of Guyana as it bars the Respondent/Applicant from obtaining any coercive order against the Finance Minister in his private or official capacity compelling or coercing him to pay a judgement in civil proceedings against the State.

Grounds stated, too, that she omitted to set aside the entire proceedings as void abinitio because the application was bad in law and misconceived Section 14 of the State Liability Proceedings Act Chapter 6:05 of the Laws of Guyana which states: “Wherever in any civil proceedings against the State judgement or order is given or made against the State, no execution shall issue thereon…”

The remaining grounds stated that she refused to grant the stay of the order for contempt to permit the State and Government of Guyana to pursue in law the process of the Appeal and erred and misdirected herself in law and/or misdirected herself in the evidence as a whole.

Meanwhile, the notice of appeal stated that additional and/or amended grounds may be filed upon seeing the final written judgement of the Learned Trial Judge.

“The Appellants respectfully pray that the judgement of the Learned Trial Judge be set aside, reversed and/or varied and the Respondent be ordered to pay the costs in this Court and the Court below,” the document stated.