Dear Editor,
In a democracy, the three branches of government, the Executive, the Legislative and the Judicial branches must be kept separate, to ensure that the checks and balances necessary to a healthy democracy, are maintained. With the 1980 Burnham constitution, and the politicization of the Guyana Appeal Court the highest legal decision-making entity of Guyana, all pretence that Guyana had any semblance to the rule of law, which it enjoyed as a British Colony, disappeared.
The Judges were appointed and promoted and their remuneration, including their duty free entitlements etc. set by the political ruling entity i.e. the executive; so to all intents and purposes, their method of appointment and their remuneration placed them squarely under the influence of the political Executive even now. In such a scenario, there could not possibly be an independent judicial branch of Government.
In addition, when Guyana changed from having elections based on the Constituent type elections to the Proportional Representation method where a party and not individuals in a party ran for legislative positions, it changed something fundamentally opposed to keeping the three arms of government separate. In the case of the Burnham government one was even required to offer one’s resignation before being placed on the party’s national list by the leader, thus the person’s first loyalty was to his Party, and in Burnham’s government the Party was paramount.
So everyone in Parliament, both the ruling party and opposition party members are loyal only to the party which put them there; there are no individuals in our parliament responsible to the people, only representatives of one party or the other, which they were required to support unquestionably. Despite numerous attempts at constitutional reform not much has changed. From the members of Parliament, who were sitting there, compliments of their party leaders’ selection, the executive members, i.e. the Ministers, are selected.
In such a scenario there can clearly be no separation of power between the legislative branch of government and the Executive branch, which also lays the foundation for the selection of ministers with no competence whatsoever, the only criteria of selection being their loyalty to their parties and its leaders. This laid the foundation of the Burnham dictatorship from 1966 to 1992. Which continues to this day. Because on achieving power in 1992, no attempt was made by the PPP to change anything.
This situation continued until 2005 when something important happened, there was established a Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) and Guyana became a member in that year. It has changed everything for us, and has at least, to some extent, diminished the executive branch from controlling our judiciary. Years ago, Sir Fenton Ramsahoye had told me that he would never practice law here, since the Guyana legal system is perverse due to the fact that the Appeals Court of Guyana was the final court Guyanese had access to in search of justice and it was controlled by the executive, his comparison was Trinidad and Tobago where the Trinidadians had access to the Privy Council in England and since the Privy Law Lords had no compunction in reversing any and all poor rulings made by the Trinidadian Judges, they even criticized them and the poor or perverse judgments rendered by them. This was the same for most if not all of the English speaking Caribbean which continued to use the Privy Council.
And so for them, the rule of law survived. After the 2020 elections for five months, we saw that the CCJ played a very important part in halting, what can only be described as an attempted coup in Guyana. The rule of law is important, Editor, very important.
I recall Lord Paddy Ashdown, the British politician put in charge of introducing democracy in Bosnia and Hercegovina after the civil war there, in an interview with Reuters said that; we made a huge mistake here, we thought that democracy came first and we held as many elections as possible, but nothing changed, because Democracy does not come first, the rule of law comes first, without it you can’t have a democracy or decent politics or decent business, nothing works.
And so because of the CCJ and our fearless Chief Justice Roxane George-Wiltshire (acting), the Rule of Law has finally emerged in Guyana, and this is what the Guyanese people and the government, to its chagrin, are seeing now. Astonishingly, Justice George-Wiltshire has been acting as chief justice since 2017!! In fact, since the then Chief Justice Desiree Bernard was elevated to Chancellor in 2001!! 22 years ago!! We have not had a substantive Chief Justice in this country!
It’s a disgrace!!
And finally, I would like to say to all the judges in Guyana, keep up the good work, what you are doing is the right thing, in helping to restore the Rule of Law in Guyana. To the people of Guyana, I say this, those of you who like me cherish The Rule of Law must not rest in our efforts to nourish it and make it grow even stronger.
Sincerely,
Tony Vieira
