Dear Editor,
In February 1982, a learned magistrate tried a case against Mr. Donald Rodney and handed down a conviction which, to put it mildly, raises doubts about its rightness.
Recently, important personages such as the former President and former Attorney General have expressed publicly the view that if the accused was unjustly convicted, the only remedy open to him was a presidential pardon.
This opinion must be respected coming from the mouth of two ‘horses’ involved in this and similar issues.
Although I am now an old and rusty nail I have listened to many lawyers in my time and wish to pose publicly my timid reservation at the view expressed by the former President and former Attorney General. British common law, much if not most of which forms a part of Guyanese law, has a number of Writs, mostly with names in Latin— a language strange to me— which offer a series of Common Law remedies to aggrieved persons. There is a familiar saying which goes, “where there is a wrong there is a remedy.” Is there not one of these Writs that allows a higher court to examine the work of a lower court and where necessary offer relief?
I attended the trials of Donald Rodney and can respectfully say that they seemed to ignore rules of procedure generally accepted as vital to justice. Have those who speak of a pardon as the only remedy explored the usefulness of these Writs? As I write I must admit that I do not know whether the application of the Writ I am thinking of has a time limitation which will bar its application after 37 years. In any case, if there is a time bar it may be worth the effort to apply to a higher court for a waiver if it is empowered to grant one.
We hear a lot of what Walter Rodney said and what Walter Rodney did. What we forget is that he spent long hours consulting with professionals of several types including lawyers, doctors, architects, accountants, teachers and people of religious persuasion, for example, urging them to organize and safeguard the high principles on which their various vocations were founded. (Unfortunately he did not live long enough to get to drivers of motor vehicles.) He did this in the belief that life for the average citizen would be much better if all professionals and other specialists spent some time and energy in guarding the ideals that drew them to their calling.
The arguments I have dared to raise in this letter, if they make any sense, will be of benefit not only to citizens like Donald Rodney, but to many whose names are not known to the public. For the younger generation who know nothing about me except my celebrated “extremism”, I mention for the record that in my time I have approached lower and higher courts with formal petitions seeking justice for individuals and groups of no special prominence.
Donald Rodney is now holding a weekly protest in front of Guyana’s highest court, in the hope of getting what he claims is an overdue response. He is an attorney-at-law and officer of the court. If in those capacities he is driven to such action, the rest of us who do not share his status must be deeply concerned.
Yours faithfully,
Eusi Kwayana.
