Leader of the Alliance for Change (AFC) and Member of Parliament (M.P) Khemraj Ramjattan came out swinging against Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall S.C for his attacks on Justice Sandil Kisson’s ruling on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Senior Magistrate Leron Daly for dismissing the case brought against former Minister of Finance, Mr. Winston Jordan.
On 3rd May, Justice Kissoon ruled the EPA must enforce the liability clause in ExxonMobil ‘s permits within 30 days from the ruling or risk the permits being suspended. The EPA appealed the ruling and requested the Court of Appeal grant a stay of the High Court’s ruling until the upper court delivers its ruling. The Appeal Court declined to stay the judgement.
Last Tuesday Senior Magistrate Leron Daly dismissed the case brought by the State Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) against Jordan of misconduct in office, stating the unit failed to prove its case.
The AFC, at its press conference last Friday, said the party notes “how Senior Counsel Anil Nandlall, our Chatri Attorney General, was most warrior-like in his assailing of both Justice Kissoon’s and [Senior] Magistrate Daly’s rulings recently, [and] disparaging remarks were some time ago directed against Justice Gino Persaud in the Paul Slowe v PSC matter; and, earlier still, directed against two of our Court of Appeal Justices re the votes on no-confidence case.”
Ramjattan stated Nandlall’s strenuous attempts to justify his disparagement of these Justice officers by a pitiful and painful exorcism of judicial pronouncements from famous Law Lords, Denning and Atkin was an abject failure because the AG’s utterances were never made in good faith. It is the opinion of the AFC Nandlall wanted to and did indeed impute improper motives and attempted to impair the administration of justice in both cases.
“In relation to the discharge of Jordan, it appears that the AG never got accurate information as to what transpired in the Magistrate Court. Worse still, were the vituperative rants and feral blasts of V.P. Jagdeo. But then the AFC is well aware that he just cannot help himself.”
The M.P warned that senior politicians like Jagdeo and Nandlall, who are holding such high offices, must not be allowed to use their offices as a bully pulpit to advance their ideas of what judgements should be delivered by the Judiciary or Magistracy. “Such conduct is uncivil, insensitive and with the intent to make justice officials look over their shoulders as to how the Executive branch thinks about their rulings. This is disastrous for institutional democracy, judicial independence and justice.”
Both politicians, the AFC, said should strive to be moral leaders who must use their offices as moral pulpit or shut up, consistent with the adage ‘silence is golden’ in such circumstances.
Underscoring the fact, the person possessed with more locus standi to constructively criticise the Magistrate’s ruling is the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) or one of her delegates, Ramjattan noted this constitutional office is specially made for political neutrality and being insulated from direct political influence. “This constitutional office was provided for some decades ago for exactly the purpose to insulate the political hands and mind of the Government’s Chief legal adviser, the Attorney General, from all matters pertaining to our criminal/prosecutorial justice system (i.e. to institute and undertake criminal proceedings, to discontinue any such prosecution and even to appeal).”
Moreover, the party leader advised even if Nandlall wanted to criticise, which he did not, he ought to know that after the paper committal was completed, Senior Counsel Roysdale Forde made several submissions that there was no case to answer. Outlining the Jordan’s matter, Ramjattan posited: –
“Firstly, there was no evidence from the Witness Statements tendered which proved that Cabinet never authorized the sale of the property. Since the accused former Minister all along was saying that he was directed and authorized by a Cabinet decision, it was the duty of the prosecution to prove that there was no such Cabinet decision. Instead what the prosecution tendered to prove this important ingredient was a heavily redacted Minutes of the Cabinet meeting which was unsigned.
“Secondly, from the Witness Statements, the prosecution did not establish that the property sold belonged to NICIL. The prosecution tendered a document purporting to assert proprietorship in the Government of Guyana.
“Thirdly, the submission as to Mr. Jordan not being a public officer by virtue of the Constitution so emphatically stressing so, was also taken up but with an elegant distinction by Senior. To put it succinctly, he questioned – ‘How could a common law offence which has as an ingredient a ‘public officer’ attribute about it, apply to Mr. Jordan when by virtue of the Constitution, the supreme law of the land, Jordan is not a public officer? If the Constitution exempts Minister Jordan from being a public officer today, then as concerning him, that common law offence cannot apply. It should only apply today to those public officers who are not Ministers. The common law offence to this extent was severed by the present Constitution.’
“Your Worship then asked the Prosecution to reply, then no case submissions were upheld. The former Minister was discharged. “
According to Ramjattan, neither Jagdeo nor the Attorney General cannot appeal this ruling and they know this. But what their noises obviously seek to do, he warned, is to attempt to influence the D.P.P. to be pressed into upturning the ruling of Daly, which he said is nothing but another attempt at defiling justice by PPP bigwigs.
