Both media and judiciary need similar measure of fairness and accountability

Dear Editor,

Recently, readers have been supplied with many comments concerning the ratings of our country Guyana in the international concept of freedom of expression as represented by the newspapers. What particularly attracted me, because it was not strange to us as citizens, was a statement by a highly placed statesman with much executive power, the Vice President Mr. Jagdeo. This executive member is reported as saying that he blames the Guyana Press Association for reducing Guyana’s place in the international ratings of where countries stand in freedom of expression. This may look like a chance remark from a politician, but it is more than that to me.

When the appointments of acting members of the judiciary and the whole idea of their appointments as permanent jurists were last aired this very functionary, the Vice President, Mr. Jagdeo, made a comment excusing the delay on the part of the President in getting down to negotiations about the appointment of the acting judicial functionaries.  Mr. Jagdeo said something to this effect that the President was not ready yet; he had to look at the track record of the persons concerned. In other words, he is telling us that when it comes to appointing judges, the president has to look at how they decide cases to look at their track records.

I don’t know what else he means by track record. So, is this an admission that the president, in appointing the Chancellor and the Chief Justice, will Americanise the system, so to speak, and take note of how judges have decided cases? I do not want to draw further conclusions, but this remark has gone uncorrected into the public sphere.  After much controversy decades ago, the Guyana constitution was amended to require agreement between the President and the Leader of the Opposition on the judges to be appointed Chancellor and Chief Justice, respectively.

But when the same Vice President speaks on press freedom and singles out an agency, the Guyana Press Association, as being responsible for Guyana’s reduced ratings in freedom of expression internationally, this is something that citizens should take note of. The Guyana Press Association at present, has as its chief executive a woman whose name is Ms. Nazima Raghubir. I came to know her by sheer chance because of the treatment I had received from one very important newspaper enjoying government patronage and because I had to appeal to the Guyana Press Association for redress.

Now the Vice President is a man with real power. He knows well that pointing his finger at a functionary of this kind may alert certain activists on his side of the political divide, and they may feel it their duty to bring this functionary into line, and that can take various forms. I will leave it at that. But I want to emphasise that it is extremely insensitive, and I regard it as menacing for the Vice President, and some people believe, the President in Chief, to name the head of a voluntary agency, the purpose of which is to bring some measure of fairness and accountability for practicing media operatives and institutions.

Yours truly,

Eusi Kwayana