Femi Harris-Smith

On April 27th, the Full Court will rule on the appeal filed by former President David Granger, who is challenging Justice Navindra Singh’s waiver of a pre-trial review (PTR) in a libel suit he filed against a number of media houses.

The issue of whether the ruling in the case of Desmond Morian v.

Former Attorney General Basil Williams SC has been unsuccessful in his attempts to avoid being sued in his personal capacity in a defamation claim which former Deputy Solicitor General, Prithima Kissoon, had filed against him.

The Government has filed an appeal against a decision handed down late last year by High Court Judge Navindra Singh, who has ruled that Senior Superintendent of Police Marcelene Washington, who is currently facing criminal prosecution, is no longer required to seek the Court’s permission whenever she wants to leave the country.

In what is not a new, but extremely rare occurrence, bail has been granted to a murder accused here in Guyana.

In what will be seen as a historic decision, the Chief Justice has confirmed the rights of Indigenous peoples of the Upper Mazaruni to their ancestral lands, though she stopped short of saying that those rights are “to the exclusion of all others.”

Finding no merit in his appeal, the Guyana Court of Appeal yesterday affirmed the conviction and 65-year sentence imposed on Esan Germain, who a jury in 2017 had found guilty of sexually abusing a 4-year-old girl on three occasions—with the final assault occurring when she was seven years old.

Finding that he did not have a fair trial, but in the same vein that the prosecution’s case against him appears strong, the Guyana Court of Appeal has ordered that rape accused, Julius Brunker, face a fresh trial.

Both the conviction and 28-year sentence imposed upon child rapist Colvin Norton were yesterday affirmed by the Guyana Court of Appeal.

Ruling that no stay would be granted, or additional time for appeals to first be heard on interlocutory issues, Justice Gino Persaud yesterday cleared the way for the substantive action challenging the suspension of the previous Police Service Commission (PSC) to move forward.

Denying that it is responsible for any destruction, the owner of the MV Tradewind Passion which crashed into the Demerara Harbour Bridge (DHB) last month, resulting in what the government says will cost in excess of one billion dollars in repairs; is arguing that the incident resulted from unforeseen circumstances.

Owing to a number of issues which have arisen, the hearing in the appeal filed by Vikash Ramkissoon and Sarah Browne, who are challenging the annulment of their appointments as Parliamentary Secretaries; has been deferred until those issues are resolved.

Guyana yesterday pilloried Venezuela’s preliminary objections to a case seeking validation of the 1899 arbitral tribunal award fixing the boundaries between the two countries and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is to notify the agents of both sides when it is ready to rule.

While stating that Guyana would remain its “eternal neighbour” and therefore “brotherly relations of friendship and cooperation,” must be maintained, Vene-zuela in the same vein is calling for the World Court to dismiss Georgetown’s application for validation of the 1899 Arbitral Award setting the boundaries between the two countries.

Venezuela’s preliminary objections to Guyana’s application to the World Court for the validation of the 1899 arbitral award setting the boundaries between the two countries were on Friday dismissed as incoherent, legally misconceived and factually baseless.

The High Court has allowed the owner of the Panama-registered ship which collided with the Demerara Harbour Bridge (DHB) last month to lodge the sum of $245.5m as limited liability compared to the more than $1b being sought by the bridge company and the vessel has now left Guyana’s waters.

Finding that Ramps Logistics had satisfied every requirement of the Local Content Act, acting Chief Justice Roxane George SC has ordered Head of the Local Content Secretariat Martin Pertab to ensure that the Company is issued its Certificate of Registration no later than noon on Monday.

Ruling among other things that both the Minister of Natural Resources and the Local Content Secretariat breached the Local Content Act, acting Chief Justice Roxane George SC this afternoon directed that Ramps Logistics be issued its Certificate of Registration no later than 12 noon on Monday, November 14th.

Opposition Chief Whip Christopher Jones has maintained that notwithstanding several of his colleagues being slated to speak on what has become the controversial passage of the Natural Resource Fund (NRF) Bill last year, they were never allowed by House Speaker Manzoor Nadir.

Twenty-two-year-old child sex offender, Orvin Smith who raped a 12-year-old girl has been sentenced to 16 years behind bars.