The courts of Guyana and the CCJ are very likely to uphold “the Reynolds Defence” so that the defence of fair comment on a matter of public interest would carry far higher weight and importance than it did in the 1960s to the 1990s.
This is the view of senior counsel Ralph Ramkarran who in his last Sunday Stabroek column noted that the country was also in a different era with a different judiciary.
Ramkarran’s column addressed the subject of fair comment on a matter of public interest. While he did not address any current matter, his column comes in the aftermath of a lawsuit filed last week on behalf of Minister of Pub-lic Telecommunications Catherine Hughes against Stabroek News and its columnist Anand Goolsarran over reportage on a contract that the minister’s company secured from the Department of Energy. Counsel for Hughes has also signaled that PPP executive Gail Teixeira also faces a lawsuit in relation to the same matter. Stabroek News has also been sued by Minister of Social Protection, Amna Ally on a separate matter.
