orders him to pay Guyana Times, Ramsammy $500k each in costs

HIGH Court Judge Navindra Singh on Friday threw out a $100 million lawsuit filed by local journalist Gordon Moseley against the Guyana Times and one of its columnists, former Minister of Health Dr. Leslie Ramsammy.

The lawsuit revolved around allegations of defamation, with Moseley contending that the publication of Ramsammy’s column in the Guyana Times in March 2021 had tarnished his reputation. As such, he approached the court seeking substantial damages.

The column penned by Ramsammy touched on Moseley’s coverage of the 2020 General and Regional Elections, specifically implicating a bias in favour of the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), and casting doubt on the legitimacy of the electoral process.

In his ruling, Justice Singh found that Ramsammy’s statement implying that Moseley was complicit in elections rigging due to his biased reporting was the former minister’s honest opinion.

Justice Singh further noted that there was no evidence to suggest that Ramsammy’s comment was made maliciously.

In his testimony in court, as stated in the ruling, Moseley had said: “Based on all that we have seen, I accept that there was an attempt to rig the elections.”

The circumstances surrounding the elections had garnered international interest and as a result, social media was abuzz with the developments surrounding the elections, either via news releases or public comments.

The judge pointed out that the dissemination of information globally through several existing social media platforms cannot be ignored, and must be taken into account when considering whether the average reader of Ramsammy’s commentary would have been aware of the underlying facts upon which he based his comment.

The court acknowledged that the events surrounding the elections had garnered international attention, and social media had played a significant role in disseminating information about the developments.

Moseley had a substantial social media following, and his reports and comments were widely read.

The judge questioned whether Moseley’s reporting adhered to these essential principles. Ultimately, the court found that elements of bias and selective reporting existed within Moseley’s coverage, reinforcing Ramsammy’s concerns about the elections results’ legitimacy.

“… despite the claimant testifying that he posted articles and/or comments that would have addressed the actions of GECOM and calling on the APNU+AFC coalition to publicly produce Statements of Poll in their possession, such postings were not produced or tendered in evidence or proven to this court,” the judge said in his ruling.

MISLEADNG AND BIASED REPORTING

Justice Singh made reference to another article published by Moseley in which the headline asserts that the diplomats left because of the complaints by the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C).

“A reasonable person would find this to be a misleading headline, since, according to the evidence, the diplomats left because of the conduct of the GECOM [Guyana Elections Commission] officials.

Referencing another article published by News Source, which was submitted as an exhibit, the judge pointed out that it contained exaggerated statements purportedly of actions orchestrated by the PPP.

Referencing another article, Justice Singh said that News Source purports to advance then-leader of APNU, David Granger’s view of the unfolding events, including an allegation that the PPP created “an atmosphere of intimidation and fear” at the office of the Returning Officer of District Number 4 “without further content as to whether such an allegation was accurate.”

“Based on an examination of the documents tendered, particularly the documents dated prior to prior to March 1 2020 that contain reports and posts by the Claimant [Moseley] and News Source Guyana, the court finds as a matter of fact that a reasonable person would find the claimant’s reporting to be biased, and intended to convince the public that the results being released by GECOM were accurate, with little or no parallel coverage of the concerns being raised by the public and the international observers over those very results,” the judge said in his ruling.

The court found that Ramsammy, who testified that he was a member of the team from the PPP verifying the results being read, could reasonably and honestly have concluded from these postings that Moseley was biased in his reporting, and was, therefore, giving support to the rigging of the elections.

Thus, the court ultimately found that there was no evidence that the comment was made maliciously by Ramsammy.

Based on his findings, Justice Singh dismissed the applications, and ordered Moseley to pay $500,000 to each defendant on or before November 30, 2023.

COLLUSION

In April 2023, the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the events of the 2020 General and Regional Elections found that there was collusion and collaboration between senior GECOM officials to divert votes to the APNU +AFC, instead of safeguarding and preserving the integrity of the electoral system.

Currently, the high-profile electoral fraud case involving several prominent figures, including former District Four (Demerara-Mahaica) Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo; former Chief Election Officer Keith Lowenfield; former People’s National Congress/Reform (PNC/R) Chairperson Volda Lawrence; PNC/R activist Carol Smith-Joseph; and several GECOM officials are before the court.

The defendants are charged in connection with inflating or facilitating the inflation of results for Region Four, the country’s largest voting district, to give the APNU+AFC coalition a majority win at the polls when, in fact, the PPP/C had won by 15,000 votes.