CCJ dons an unspotted escutcheon

Dear Editor,

I feel the irresistible compunction to comment on the reality that “Guyana’s final appellate court, CCJ, must be respected.” This is coming from Guyana’s AG, Mohabir Anil Nandalal, but I will not use the AG as my source of support. I have very irrefutable, tenacious, and tenable support to invoke herein, and I await any debunking of my position.

First, I am very firm in my take that the barrage on the CCJ, at least where Guyana is concerned, has its basis in Team Mohamed, the WIN and Opposition Head, and the stark reality that he feels peeved that there was no reprieve for him when the seven CCJ Judges all voted –unhesitatingly and unanimously – to dismiss his appeal that the Guyana Court should not grant the Guyanese Government’s Authority to Proceed with a United States extradition request, where they are facing an 11-count federal indictment in Florida, for alleged wire fraud, mail fraud, and money laundering, associated with their gold trading business. By dismissing their appeal, the CCJ cleared the path for the extradition process to resume in Guyana’s lower courts. This is most damning to the lot.

All these criticisms pathetically lack even an iota of merit regarding the actual fairness of his legal outcome.

Why?

It is that there was a unanimous verdict where everyone of the seven CCJ Judges voted in harmony to dismiss Mohamed’s appeal, even the five who later complained about the CCJ President’s “procedural” way of handling issues? Yes, they all, in an independent and non-coercive manner, as befitting high-ranking legal luminaries, independently arrived at the exact same legal conclusion.

These legal professionals, comprising the panel and the CCJ overall, have way too much at stake to risk any collusion and compromise. Mind you, so far, not a single complainer or critic has been able, not that they needed to try, to proffer evidence that the ultimate verdict was corrupted or altered.

Editor, let’s be mindful of how desperate the Mohameds are, as they are facing an 11-count federal indictment in the United States. There is no frivolity here. So, as expected, the ruse and decoy are all about a strategy to aggressively attack the credibility, independence, and integrity of the judicial system trying to extradite them in order to delay proceedings or build a narrative of political persecution.

I need not refer to legal experts who are contending that they have no justification to claim the final legal ruling was unfair, as we all know that there was an absolute unanimity of the bench. I can, and candid readers too, discern that there is nothing tucked away or kept clandestinely. Nothing was surreptitious. We followed. We analysed. So, we knew the tenor of the issue and could have predicted its ending.

Let me now move to the actual CCJ, a most austere and august institution, and point out how this is perceived by those outside of the region. I posit that “our” Caribbean Court of Justice is not someone’s notion of anything ordinary. It is a very high-ranking judicial tribunal and thus can rightfully serve as the final court of appeal for the several CARICOM nations who have gone that route.

For those casting silly aspersions, the CCJ employs a very independent and autonomous regional and international legal bench, appointed via a specialised and independent regional judicial and legal service commission. No one can even risk infiltration of any sort therein.

Independent encomiums, external too, have been lavished upon this CCJ, and it has earned a respected legal reputation for its jurisprudence, as legal scholars, regional bar associations, and international jurists keep on heavily praising the court’s intellectual output. Legal experts globally are acclaiming the CCJ’s written judgements for their high academic and legal quality.

Let it be known that the CCJ selects its Judges via an independent commission. And therefore, enjoys being regarded as a world-class model for preventing direct political interference from local Governments. It remains very insulated and non-porous.

According to eminent Professor Kate Malleson, a distinguished legal scholar and professor of law at University College London (UCL), writing in her extensive research on “How international courts select their Judges”^[1], she highly praised the CCJ’s external selection body – the Regional Judicial and Legal Services Commission (RJLSC). She has consistently held it up as a “world-class model” for ensuring that judicial candidates are independent, high-quality, and entirely insulated from political interference. Beat that!

I add that this “Virtuoso of the Bar” has served as a high-level specialist adviser to the UK House of Commons Constitutional Affairs Select Committee. Her work directly impacted the landmark UK Constitutional Reform Act 2005. She has also counselled the Northern Ireland Judicial Appointments Commission on judicial diversity.

Now, I will get to Anil Nandlall (Attorney General of Guyana) and what he said about the CCJ.

Anil is a veritable leading legal voice in the region, who regularly appears before the courts. He has every right to publicly praise the CCJ’s written judgements, not only in this issue but overall. He, like the learned law professor, noted that “written judgements” are of such exceptionally high quality that they easily “hold their own against any courts of similar jurisdiction,” including top-tier international tribunals.

It is common knowledge that Nandlall achieved massive regional recognition for his legal defence of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) during Guyana’s highly contentious 2020 election crisis. That was seminal. He single-handedly upended the attempts of the “legal” hijacking by Granger and his team, using his inherent and studied legal foresight that pre-empted many dangerous manoeuvres by the then opposition.

On this note, and this has always been so, the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) and the Judges explicitly singled him out in their formal judgement, praising his “impassioned and persuasive arguments” as an “outstanding example of legal advocacy”.

No wonder he is seen as a premier authority on Caribbean public and constitutional law, having personally litigated almost every major election and constitutional case in Guyana over the last two decades. He serves on the CCJ Academy for Law, is the Chairman of the Guyana Law Revision Commission, and has served on the Executive Council of Legal Education of the West Indies.

In the current border issue with Venezuela, Nandlall has been a central figure leading Guyana’s legal team before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the high-stakes, ongoing territorial border dispute against Venezuela, earning significant national recognition for safeguarding the country’s sovereignty.

It is not surprising that he has earned his accolades. He is the respected and feared figure in Guyana’s jurisprudence, where the opposition collective is totally intimidated by his mere presence.

And as you can see, I am not building a case for him. He does not need that from mere me. Read again, and even more, who said what about him?

So, Anil Nandlall has every right to “weigh in on the controversy surrounding the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), stressing that the institution is Guyana’s final court and, as such, must be respected.”

I echo his sentiments ad infinitum that “… comments made by a politician associated with We Invest in Nationhood (WIN), Mark Goring, who posted on Facebook that ‘The evidence shows that the CCJ President compromised long, bring the Baygon; let’s spray out this cockroach.’”

I bet we will see a real cockroach if we leave some decaying scraps in the form of fried rice. So venal are these elements of otiosity.

References

1. Discussion Paper Selecting International Judges — www.ucl.ac.uk ↩