Dear Editor,
REVIEWING, Hon Minister Mr. Dharmlall’s recent comments posted on Facebook, I see no evidence that he called the decisions by the learned judges of the Appeal Court of Guyana as being racially based or that he called the judges racists. Yet his opinion about the ruling by two judges of the Guyana Court of Appeal against the decision made by the sound ruling of the learned Chief justice (ag) was criticised by many. A letter unfortunately published in the Kaiteur news calls Mr. Dharmlall a racist. The writer says “It is a racist statement designed to demean, humiliate, and debase the Justices”. The writer continues to make another serious assumption that Mr. Dharmlall saw two judges as black. “It should be noted that since Minister Dharamlall has labelled two Black justices as PNC activists, by the same token, he has inferred that all Indian Justices in Guyana are PPP activists as well”. It is the writer who is recognising the judges by their colour. A characteristic of a racist person is to see a person by their race and not by their profession or personal qualities. The writer goes on to add our Excellency the President to the litany of accusations of racial bias. “The mere fact that President Ali did not rebuke the Minister for his dreadful remarks is appalling, inexcusable, and outrageous to say the least. It also suggests that President Ali is on the same page with the bigoted Minister when it comes to Black justices. It also means that the President and other senior officials in the PPP believed that only Indians and not Blacks are worthy of holding high offices in Guyana. This has and continues to be the motive of the PPP, which had campaigned on change and inclusive government.” This letter is published at a time when tension is raised by persons prepared to take physical action to oppose decisions which are made by the majority as recently seen in Parliament when a parliamentarian attempted to steal the Speaker’s Mace.

Guyana is recovering from decisions of the judiciary which allowed the perpetuation that a party was the winner of the National election, even in the face of overwhelming international criticisms. Recall the decision by the Court of Appeal of Guyana overturning the Chief Justice ruling about what number constitutes a majority. At that time A Mr. Bert Wilkinson reporting in the Caribbean Connection March 28th 019, described the racial backgrounds of the judges, “In a stunning reversal of political fortunes, a Guyanese appeals court has overturned a late December opposition no-confidence vote. Two Afro-Guyanese judges, Judiciary Chancellor Yonette Cummings and Dawn Gregory, this past weekend ruled that lawmakers required 34 rather than 33 votes to form an absolute majority of the 65 seats in the assembly to topple the administration of retired army general David Granger. The third appeals Indo-Guyanese judge, Mr. Rishi Persaud, disagreed”. I wrote in the Stabroek news, March 29th 2019 expressing my concern about the use of law for finding political solutions, “I believe that if the CCJ confirms the result of the Appeals Court that this would be adding to further divisiveness of our legal fraternity, political parties and people. I feel that there is a need for curtailing excessive spending for enrichment of lawyers at the detriment of the economy of Guyana. No one truly wins and the people of Guyana are the losers.”

The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) dismissed the judgment by the Guyana Court of Appeal. However, the impasse continued and it took much more time for the final decision to be made by the CCJ in the historic decision of July 2020 with a unanimous verdict, “In a judgment delivered today, the Caribbean Court of Justice ruled that the judgment handed down by the Guyana Court of Appeal on 22 June 2020, which judgment was used by the Chief Election Officer (CEO) to invalidate over 100,000 votes, was invalid. The Court also decided that, as a consequence, the 23 June 2020 report of the Chief Election Officer was also invalid. The CCJ’s judgment was a unanimous one to which all the sitting Judges contributed.”

Democracy appeared to have been restored. Yet when we believe that the time has come for healing of our peoples the Appeals Court of Guyana rules again. Persons of political colours, on social media and in letters to the newspapers who chastise Mr. Dharmlall for his comments about the Appeals Court, must also include other senior distinguished persons who have criticised this Courts’ rulings. Dennis Chabrol in Elections News, Politics on Friday 22nd October 2021 reported, “UWI lecturers question independence of Guyana Court of Appeal on political, election cases. Two University of the West Indies (UWI) lecturers have strongly cast doubt on the independence of the Guyana Court of Appeal because of its rulings on political and 2020 general election cases. Law Lecturer, Ronnie Yearwood highlighted that the Guyana High Court rulings had been all upheld by the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) rather than the Guyana Court of Appeal. “It seems often that the High Court and the Caribbean Court of Justice were on similar wavelengths and similar thoughts and reasoning. It was often the Court of Appeal where the judgment seems to go awry and then the CCJ correcting the Court of Appeal to say actually what the High Court originally ruled as the exclusive court to deal with electoral matters was right so we often saw that happen,” he told a virtual discussion on the topic “The Judiciary and the 2020 Guyana Elections,” Senior Political Science Lecturer, Cynthia Barrow-Giles stated categorically that “I don’t want to impute anybody” but she said from the decisions made, Guyana provided a good basis for insisting on the need for separation of powers among the executive, legislative and judicial arms of the State. “Some of the judgments that came out of the Court of Appeal are highly questionable and that is why to a certain extent….Certainly, there might be a connection with the appointment process and some of the judgments but certainly in relation to the Caribbean, one of the things  that we have to focus on is the need to ensure that we really have a complete separation of powers in the region; I think  that was one of  the issues that clearly comes out in relation to some of the things that we saw coming out of the Guyanese courts in particular,” said Ms. Barrow-Giles.

The Bar Association must take the lead to ensure that there is separation of powers in our country. Also the association of journalists must ensure that editors review carefully the content of letter writers so that the media is not used as a tool for inciting public emotions based on erroneous conclusions.
Yours respectfully,
Dr. Davendra Sharma