Former People’s Progressive Party (PPP) minister and political scientist Dr. Henry Jeffrey has argued that the High Court’s recent ruling in favour of the International Decade for People of African Descent Assembly-Guyana (IDPADA-G) does little to remedy what he describes as a broader erosion of justice, constitutional governance and the rights of African Guyanese.
Writing in his “Future Notes” column titled “Justice is yet to be done,” published in Village Voice News on July 5, Jeffrey contends that while the court ordered the Government of Guyana to pay IDPADA-G the outstanding balance of its 2022 subvention, the judgment falls far short of addressing what he believes are the state’s moral and legal obligations.
“The decision is useful, but it is miniscule in relation to the developmental agenda to which the Government of Guyana had committed itself,” Jeffrey wrote, arguing that the litigation was never fundamentally about money.
The High Court last month ordered the government to pay IDPADA-G the remainder of the subvention that was withheld in 2022 after the PPP/C administration terminated the organisation’s funding. The government had cited concerns over accountability for public funds, while IDPADA-G maintained that the withdrawal was unlawful and politically motivated.
Jeffrey dismissed the accountability justification, asserting that “the judicial dispute that has just concluded is not merely the outcome of some quarrel about financial accountability; indeed, the latter appears a concoction to disguise the real problem.”
He argued that the real turning point came after members of IDPADA-G participated in the Cuffy 250 Annual State of African Guyanese Forum in 2022, which was held under the theme, “Resisting the emerging apartheid state: economic equity and security.” According to Jeffrey, the conference “severely irked” the government, which subsequently withdrew the organisation’s annual subvention after making what he described as “many unfounded accusations relating to financial accountability.”
The government has consistently rejected allegations of racial discrimination, maintaining that its decision to terminate IDPADA-G’s subvention was based on concerns over financial accountability. At the same time, senior government officials publicly accused members of the organisation’s leadership of misappropriating public funds—allegations that IDPADA-G repeatedly denied, insisting that its financial records accounted for the expenditure of the subvention and that the accusations were politically motivated.
Jeffrey contends that the dispute has exposed a much larger constitutional issue involving the state’s relationship with African-Guyanese institutions.
He noted that IDPADA-G was established in 2017 by the Government of Guyana as the national mechanism to implement the United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent, a global initiative aimed at promoting and protecting the rights of people of African descent while addressing the enduring effects of slavery, colonialism and systemic racism.
He argued that international human rights instruments recognise the right of ethnic communities to establish and manage their own representative organisations independently of the state.
“It gets worse,” Jeffrey wrote. “The largely Indian-supported PPP government has now taken it upon itself to determine and fund the persons and groups that are to represent the African people.”
The political scientist also linked the dispute to what he described as Guyana’s longstanding failure to reform its winner-take-all political system.
Quoting from the Carter Center’s final report on the 2025 General and Regional Elections, Jeffrey noted the observation that Guyana’s electoral system, combined with historically ethnic voting patterns, has produced a “winner-take-all character” that has been detrimental to social cohesion and ethnic relations, with the report recommending constitutional reform.
Jeffrey argued that successive political leaders have long understood these structural challenges. He noted that proposals for power sharing were discussed during Guyana’s independence negotiations and later featured prominently in the A Partnership for National Unity and Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) coalition’s 2011 and 2015 election manifestos but were never implemented.
Drawing on the writings of Martin Luther King Jr., St. Augustine and Immanuel Kant, Jeffrey argued that justice requires courts to look beyond the narrow application of written law when fundamental rights are at stake.
“The judiciary must not only confine itself to the written law but should on all occasions consider what should be done to deliver justice,” he wrote.
Jeffrey also questioned whether the judiciary had gone far enough in protecting constitutional rights, arguing that “an independent judiciary should not allow the executive to so brazenly demolish the human rights of the citizenry.”
While acknowledging that the court’s decision would assist IDPADA-G in paying creditors and meeting existing obligations, Jeffrey maintained that it leaves unresolved what he considers the central issue—the government’s commitment to the rights and development of African Guyanese.
Concluding his column, Jeffrey warned that Guyana’s political institutions remain trapped in ethnic competition and urged citizens who still care about justice to remember Martin Luther King Jr.’s words that “An unjust law is no law at all,” insisting that despite the court’s ruling, “justice is yet to be done.”
