Dear Editor,
In a Department of Public Information (DPI) article that was published on December 24, 2025, and titled ‘Evidence, Companies Acts to be updated: Trust Bill coming – AG Nandlall’ there was a quote by the Attorney General (AG) that left many African Guyanese concerned. The article stated that ‘the Attorney General indicated that updating the 1893 Evidence Act is a priority’; he further stated that “Nothing that was relevant in 1893 can be relevant now. So, by the sheer passage of time, the Evidence Act is outmoded and outdated”. The AG further stated “That act was born out of a different era. We are now living in an ICT world”. The DPI article further stated that ‘a draft of a modern Evidence Act based on an internationally recognized model (Australia), has been completed and is expected to be taken to cabinet before public consultations begin’.
While we anxiously await the updated 1893 Evidence Act, I will be preemptive. I find the Attorney General’s comments to be careless and reckless. After we review the DRAFT updated Act we will decide if his comments were prejudicial and possibly racist also. For Afro-Guyanese or African Guyanese, by 1893 slavery would have been abolished in British Guiana for 55 years, so it means that after hundreds of years of Africans in Guyana being enslaved, their history in terms of land and property ownership, transfer of inheritance and property would have begun from around the 1840’s, onwards. So, when the Attorney General makes a blanket statement that ‘Nothing that was relevant in 1893 can be relevant now’, moreso, in the context of updating the 1893 Evidence Act, African Guyanese get nervous and are put on high alert, since much of African Guyanese history, in terms of ownership of land and property, transfer of property and inheritance is intricately linked to evidences from 1840s, 1850s, 1860s, 1870s, 1880s,1890s, etc., So the 1893 Evidence Act is as relevant today for African Guyanese as it was in 1893.
For other ethnic groups, for e.g. East Indian Guyanese or Indo-Guyanese, their history in British Guiana and Guyana started in 1838 as indentured servants. The first batch of Portuguese came to British Guiana in 1834/1835 while the first batch of Chinese came to British Guiana in 1853. So, it means that by 1893, while African Guyanese were freed for 55 years, East Indian Guyanese entire history in British Guiana was 55 years, the Portuguese who also came as indentured servants, entire history was 58/59 years. The Chinese who came as indentured servants also, their entire history was 40 years in British Guiana by 1893. It is important to note, indentured servitude in British Guiana was in place for about 82 years (From 1835 – 1917). So, in the Guyana context, any review of the 1893 Evidence Act must reflect the broader context of Guyana’s evolution and the evolution of the various ethnic groups in Guyana.
For example, when did land and property ownership started for African Guyanese, East Indian Guyanese, Chinese Guyanese, Portuguese Guyanese, etc.? In this letter the interest of African Guyanese is particularly important since the 1893 Evidence Act is linked to a period when they were no longer enslaved and were transitioning from slavery to acquiring land, property and transferring land and property and inheritance. Why is this relevant for African Guyanese in the 2025 oil and gas Guyana context? From 2020, African Guyanese and the poorer class of Guyanese have been essentially ‘locked out’ of the state and political economy, they have been ‘locked out’ of the market economy, and I am not analysing here whether that ‘locking out’ was deliberate, intentional or unintentional, however, it is a reality and a fact. Many African Guyanese having done an assessment over the past five years, have quietly began to develop an economic development plan/programme for a vibrant social economy within their communities. This is their way of navigating and carving out a pathway to position African Guyanese and African Guyanese communities to benefit from the oil wealth and to develop a sustainable system and pathways to transition out of poverty into not mere growth and development, but prosperity. Land and property ownership is at the center of the African Guyanese plan/programme to transition their people and communities out of poverty into prosperity in the new oil and gas Guyanese economy.
Therefore, prejudicial changes to the 1893 Evidence Act can leave the African Guyanese and their communities with even more limited pathways out of poverty into prosperity and impact negatively on this social economy economic development plan/programme, despite Guyana being the fasting growing economy in the world. African Guyanese and African Guyanese organisations are anxiously awaiting the draft updated 1893 Evidence Act to ensure that the updated Act is
relevant to them and their communities and is not another systemic attempt to place hindrances to the growth and development of their communities. African Guyanese and African Guyanese organisations must be on high alert with regards to any revision of the 1893 Evidence Act to ensure that while the government modernizes the Act, it does not attempt to ‘modernize’ African Guyanese history. As a matter of fact, we are keen on reviewing the legal reforms which the Attorney General stated are ongoing, including the new Trust Bill.
Additionally, the Attorney General and the government has to ensure that it is not taking a pigeon-holed view in modernizing the 1893 Evidence Act, which is a domestic law; in a way that contradicts or that is not consistent with international law e.g. if according to the AG ‘Nothing that was relevant in 1893 can be relevant now’; Guyana is currently before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and one of the country’s main piece of evidence in the Venezuela – Guyana border controversy is the 1899 Arbitral Award that settled the border dispute between Guyana and Venezuela. Is nothing from 1893 relevant now, in the context of revising the 1893 Evidence Act? Really? Or is the AG just referring to the domestic context? Hmm!
The water supply system in Rome, Italy Mr. Attorney General is over 2000 years old and another part is over 500 years old. Some things are grounded in the history of a people, and a country and modernizing does not mean attempting to remove or rewrite history, it must build constructively on history. As indicated above, I am being deliberately preemptive here.