– AG to appear today
Justice William Ramlal, sitting late in the afternoon in the High Court to hear a motion filed by CN Sharma over President Bharrat Jagdeo’s four-month suspension of his television licence, yesterday ordered service on the Attorney General for him to appear in the matter since there were too many unanswered questions.
Justice Ramlal made the order, following a lengthy submission by Attorney-at-law Nigel Hughes that substantially raised the issue of the President sitting and determining a complaint in which he was the subject matter. Attorney General Doodnauth Singh is expected to appear today, when the matter resumes.
Prior to appearing in court, Hughes told reporters that the legal team was hoping the matter would be heard expeditiously and not drag on until the four-month suspension expired.
In the application before the High Court, which was made by Hughes appearing in association with attorneys-at-law, Stephen Fraser and Mark Waldron, Sharma is requesting a conservatory order restraining Jagdeo, who is the minister with responsibility for telecommunications, his servants and or agents from suspending and or continuing to suspend his licence until the hearing and determination of the motion.
He is also seeking a conservatory order suspending the suspension of his licence on Friday last until the matter is determined. Additionally, the television owner is requesting an order nisi for Jagdeo to show cause why his decision to sit, hear and determine the complaint in which the subject of the complaint involved a threat made against him should not be quashed as a decision which is ultra vires, in breach of the rules of natural justice and fairness and null and void.
CN Sharma, who was present at court yesterday for the hearing, spoke briefly. He said that as the legal fight continues he and his supporters will protest the decision by holding vigils outside the now closed Channel 6 station.
GPA vigil
The Guyana Press Association (GPA) organised a solidarity vigil outside CNS-TV 6 on Sunday night that drew wide support from media workers in the broadcast and print media along with CN Sharma, his staff and members of the public.
In a statement issued yesterday the press body said that while other groups may be planning similar activities for this week, it will keep members informed about its future activities.
GPA restated its call for the President to immediately rescind the suspension, and for him to set up a presidential tribunal of legal luminaries to examine the issue and consider evidence from all sides before handing down a penalty.
According to the statement, the four-month suspension is harsh and the adjudicating process is grossly unfair, amounting to clear case of the abuse of executive authority.
It stated that President Jagdeo, utilizing his apparent constitutional immunity from litigation, was himself the aggrieved person, judge and enforcer of the penalty, a scenario that is a conflict of interest and breach of the principles of natural justice.
The GPA said it welcomes the decision by CNS-TV6 to purchase and install a delay-system that will enable it to screen telephone calls of certain utterances, adding that in keeping with reputable broadcasting standards, the repeated airing of the alleged threat was wrong. It noted that the host of the programme had cautioned the caller who had uttered the offending words in the first instance.
“The argument posited by the government that in the first instance the Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon was asked to address the matter is crooked to the extent that Dr Luncheon is a key high-ranking functionary in the Office of the President, and advisor and confidante of President Jagdeo who is the Minister of Information,” the statement said.
Further it added that utilizing this crooked process is setting a dangerous precedent for the proposed Broadcast Authority whenever broadcast legislation is enacted, particularly since in most, if not all laws, the subject minister is the final decision-maker.
According to the GPA, the Guyana government should also take into consideration the impact that a prolonged closure can have on the national treasury through the loss of substantial revenue from taxation.
GHRA condemns
suspension
Coming out in condemnation of the four-month suspension of Sharma’s licence, the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) said yesterday it is an abuse of power and that it is contrary to natural justice for the President to adjudicate in a matter affecting him.
The association stated that prolonged inaction by the government over implementation of broadcast legislation has contributed to the present controversy and “renders its recent over-reaction all the more inexcusable,” adding that a pause or delay should have been mandatory years ago given the extensive use of call-in programmes on local television. It called on the President to rectify the inaction through speedy and impartial reform of the entire legal and administrative framework governing radio and television.
GHRA said that the sense of unfairness fuelling protests at the presidential action is promoted partially by the role politicians themselves in creating a culture of abusive, derogatory and offensive comments on television.
“Government ministers, in particular, routinely use NCN Channel 11 as a vehicle for prolonged slanderous vituperation against their critics, thereby giving permission for similar behaviour on other stations by other politicians. Moreover, they include calls for suspected criminals to be ‘hunted down and killed’,” the statement said.
According to the association, CNS Channel 6, has been a pacesetter, doing violence to most canons of good taste, professional journalism, humanitarian relief and legal statute.
It said that in this context of habitual illegality, a verbal threat to kill the President, initially attracted the attention it actually deserved — a low-key reminder to CN Sharma to clean up his act. No one took the threat as a serous security issue, GHRA added.
Stating that it does not wish to trivialise the infringement, the association said, what may be more pertinent to understanding the harness of the sanction is the sentiment expressed in the original letter of the Advisory Committee on Broadcasting (ACB).
GHRA said that while freedom of expression is not unfettered it can be legitimately limited in a proportionate way to protect people from libel, racial or religious hatred or incitement to murder but it pointed out that giving offence is not a legitimate reason for the state to limit free speech.
Further it added that the President appears surprisingly comfortable with the systematic political impropriety of reducing the state-funded NCN Channel 11 to the service of his own political party.
Meanwhile, Vision Guy-ana Chairman, Peter Ramsaroop said the closure of Channel 6 is a blatant act to stop the voice of the people given that Sharma has exposed more corruption by officials and how citizens are treated daily by government.
In a statement yesterday, Ramsaroop said Sharma’s recent exposure of the Mon Repos market construction and conditions that people experience everyday was enlightening and that “monies spent on these areas shows how our taxpayer’s money is being wasted on a daily basis”.
Ramsaroop stated that there was no action by the police to track the caller down to see if it was a setup, adding that government did not even suggest that the show be taken off the air.
The Vision Chairman said he condemns the closure and called for the immediate opening of the station. He said that the police needs to start investigating threats to the government via calls on television.
Additionally, he said, that TV stations needs to implement call screening and immediately shut off people that are not constructive.
