Dear Editor,
With regards to the discussion on executive immunity, Guyana versus the rest of the world, it should be noted that the US president is not immune from legal sanctions for acts that violate his oath of office and the US constitution. The difference is that he or she will be held accountable in a trial in the Senate, rather than in a judicial court of law. The whole charade of attempting to justify alleged and perceived abuse of executive privilege in Guyana by drawing comparisons with first world democracies is both facetious and disingenuous. Guyana has none of the checks and balances limiting the scope of executive powers that is alive and kicking in places like the US, the UK and Canada. In addition, the independent press in pursuit of scrutinizing the performance of the government in those nations does not labour under the kind of political, legal and ethnic duress as obtains in Guyana. As a budding democracy we have a very far way to go before we should, with a straight face and settled conscience, engage in the kind of convenient comparative analysis that triggered this train of discussion.
We must not forget that in this contemporary era impeachment proceedings were initiated against two presidents of the United States of America, one a Republican and the other a Democrat. In the first one, many members of the President’s political organization prioritized their fealty to the US constitution over fealty to their shared political party and political interests.
