HIGH court judge, Sandra Kurtzious, on Wednesday, affirmed her awarding of a default libel judgement against Vice-President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, in a proceeding filed by former Minister of Communities, Annette Ferguson. However, the judge recanted the $20M previously granted, and is expected to assess a new quantum of damages with the parties involved come July 28, 2021. Jagdeo’s attorney, Devindra Kissoon is expected to file an appeal against the judge’s ruling. In March, Justice Kurtzious had rendered the default judgement in the libel proceedings filed by Ferguson, who served under the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) administration.
The proceedings resulted from statements made by Jagdeo alleging in December 2019, that Ferguson had acquired significant wealth in only two years of being the housing minister, and used her public office to acquire several plots of lands at Eccles, East Bank Demerara on which she was constructing a mansion, which was published in the Guyana Times newspapers. The libel proceeding against Guyana Times is still ongoing. Ferguson and her team of attorneys had applied for default judgement after Jagdeo had failed to file a defence within the prescribed time outlined in the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR). Ferguson’s application was granted on March 11, 2021 and was awarded default judgement against Jadgeo in the sum of $20,000,000, along with costs in the sum of $75,000.

The Guyana Chronicle had reported that when the proceedings were filed, Jagdeo was represented by the current Attorney-General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall, S.C, who appeared at the hearings for injunctions which were also applied for in proceedings, filed the required affidavits, and made legal submissions.
Subsequently, on February 25, 2020, the court dismissed the applications filed for injunctions after considering the affidavits and hearing the legal submissions made. Jagdeo pleaded the defence of justification and fair comment in his affidavits. On or about February 24, 2020, a defence on behalf of Jagdeo became due under the Rules of Court; however, that defence, though prepared, was inadvertently never filed due to a series of exceptional circumstances which resulted in Jagdeo and his legal team being unreservedly occupied.
Attorney-at-Law, Devindra Kissoon, shortly after, moved to have the judgement set aside and filed a notice of application seeking to have Ferguson’s Statement of Claim dismissed on the basis of delay.