While the Akawaio and Arekuna communities have hailed the Chief Justice’s (CJ) ruling confirming their rights to ancestral lands, they are dissatisfied with her finding that those rights are not exclusive to them.
Their prime contention is that it was an error for the Judge to have found that notwithstanding proof of their occupation through substantial connection from time immemorial, the finding was still that it is the Government which possesses ultimate title.
To this end, they are challenging the ruling, asking the Guyana Court of Appeal to amend that aspect of the decision, or completely set it aside.
