Dear Editor,
I thought that I should rely upon the kind indulgence of your letter pages before conduct and results of the imminent national elections should dominate the media. I invite focus upon the organization known as the Guyana Association of Women Lawyers.
My principal quandary is who and where are they now. We appreciate their contributions of yesteryear in the form of the very useful pamphlets and booklet entitled ‘The Law and You’. It is, however, of some significance that their public presentations are at a standstill in the absence of financing from some external or international financing agency.
I was reminded of their existence by the fact of their participation with The Guyana Bar Association in the annual dinner usually held at this time of year and which I hear took place on Friday last. In celebration of whatever. I must admit that I have neither time for taste for such dainties at this time of crisis. What I really hunger for is the reaction of the Guyana Women Lawyers Association to the disastrous conditions obtaining at the Deeds Registry and the Land Registry so well highlighted in your columns and which must feature in the actual experience and professional practice of their members.
A more recent element in many of my published letters has been my direction of blame toward the governmental and ministerial administrations, the senior lawyers and in particular those whose legal firms process mortgages on behalf of the financial institutions, the managers of those financial institutions themselves, and the practising legal community in general. Even more recently my fingers were pointed at the opposition political parties, all to no apparent avail. But now I am under obligation to correct my omission and to include specifically in the firing line the Guyana Association of Women Lawyers (GAWL). Allowing that they were as negligent as those referred to above in reacting to the exigencies of the two Registries as essential elements of our land-titles administration, were they not affronted and alarmed by the blatant refusal by the Minister of Legal Affairs to meet with a delegation from the Guyana Bar Association on the status of the Deeds Registry? Is that not a glaring danger-signal which exemplified the contempt with which organizations like their own may be treated? How can they dine so peacefully while the country burns? Now, because of the gender element inherent in their name I am prepared to allow and at the same time to challenge the ladies of GAWL in the narrow context of a gender issue, to regard the affairs and administration of the Deeds Registry and the Land Registry in that restrictive light.
At the Land Registry an entire national land-tenure and land-titles system is left in the hands of a sole female, with no deputies or assistants for which the law provides. She operates with all the style of the idiosyncratic despot with the patent benediction of Dr Roger Forbes Luncheon who heads the presidential secretariat, her source of authority, and amidst the timid and muted complaints of the legal profession – male and female alike.
The Deeds Registry, whose importance, activities and impact in relation to the main land-titles (Transports) system enjoy a much wider compass, presents a more challenging picture. That department emerged seven months ago from an entirely female headship and administration that has been no mean contributory to the disastrous state in which it now finds itself. Apart from the doubtful legal status of the Registry brought about by recent ministerial antics related to the Deeds Registry Authority Act 1999, the position on the ground is still precarious regardless of the apparent state of efficient business.
The staff which is predommantly female – no male of supervisory level – is now the butt of increasing accusations of private practice as they seek to augment the paltry and insulting levels of official pay. I would expect such a situation to be of special interest and concern to an organization whose very name contains such feminine flavour.
But that is not all. Ever since April, 2011 the Department with its operations in the three counties of Guyana has been mercilessly thrown upon the narrow shoulders of a calm, and reputedly incorruptible female senior clerk acting as Deputy Registrar of a legal department of the state and bereft of a Registrar at the head or at least legal counsel on the staff, and with no current prospect of such appointment. Which means that Ms Paula Ann Ferdinand is expected, with no vacation leave over the past year to bear this unconscionable burden into the post-election new year. Surely such ham-handed administration and inhumane treatment of a faithful public servant, particularly of feminine gender would be expected to attract not only the grave concern but also the active representation by an organization so titled as the Guyana Association of Women Lawyers.
Yours faithfully,
Leon O Rockcliffe
