After his third appearance in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday on a charge of sedition, Oliver Hinckson was further remanded with Magistrate Gordon Gilhuys saying that bail will be considered on the next occasion if the prosecution is not prepared to proceed with the trial.
At the last hearing, Magistrate Gilhuys had said that yesterday would have been the beginning of the trial. However, Police Prosecutor Robert Tyndall was not prepared. The court was told that the case file was at the Chambers of the Director of Public Prosecutions, where it had been sent for advice since the last hearing.
When the case was called around 10.45 am, Tyndall said he was holding firm to his objection to bail. Magistrate Gilhuys said he was not venturing into the subject of bail since to his understanding a bail hearing was proceeding in the High Court.
Attorney-at-law Nigel Hughes told the magistrate that even though there was a pending bail application in the High Court, the consideration of bail was not removed from his discretion in the Magistrate’s Court. He said that the prosecution had not advanced a single reason why bail should be further refused.
He told the magistrate that it was clear that there was no regard for the court by the prosecution or by the Office of the DPP. Hughes said the case was one of national interest; it has been in the media almost every day, had elicited public views from many prominent organisations and yet no representative of the DPP or the DPP herself had “the courtesy” to show up in court with a plausible excuse for the delay in producing the file.
He added that given the fact that the state proclaimed the matter as “grave and serious”, the prosecutor should have made it his duty to present the file for the given court date.
Magistrate Gilhuys said he could not understand the lax way in which the prosecution was acting, saying that something was definitely wrong. He added that his position on the matter of bail still held. He also said that there could not be a bail hearing in the Magistrate’s and High courts at the same time.
But Hughes said an original application for bail was filed in the High Court and not an appeal on the refusal of bail from the Magistrate’s Court and therefore Magistrate Gilhuys was not precluded from considering bail.
At this point, the magistrate said he would set the matter for next Thursday (April 3). However, following further arguments put forward by Hughes he changed the date to Monday, March 31.
At this point, Hinckson’s other lawyer Vic Puran stood to address the court. Puran told the magistrate that Hinckson should be granted bail since the prosecution was not in a position to request refusal. Puran urged the magistrate to look at what was before him: no state counsel, no file and no witnesses in the matter. He questioned the refusal of bail when, according to him, there was no application for a refusal.
Hughes pointed out further that the “Guyana Police Force is demonstrating their alienation from the truth” with this case and that “citizens cannot come here [to court] to be scoffed at by the prosecution.”
Meanwhile, in relation to the High Court case, Stabroek News has learnt that Chief Justice Ian Chang will be hearing the matter.
This newspaper was also informed that Hinckson, who is at present a student at the University of Guyana, had written to the institution requesting permission to write examinations he had missed owing to his incarceration. The prison had agreed to facilitate this, but the arrangement was later cancelled.
Hinckson was charged on March 11 with advocating the commission of a terrorist act and uttering seditious statements. The charges stemmed from statements Hinckson made at a press conference hosted by Mayor Hamilton Green at City Hall on February 1.
