Public criticism follows the actions, decisions, careers of public officers, including judicial officers worldwide and the judiciary should not expect to be exempt, the Office of the President (OP) said yesterday.
In a statement in response to the Guyana Bar Associa-tion’s (GBA) expressed alarm at comments from President Bharrat Jagdeo and Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee about the judiciary, some of which it said could be interpreted as threatening, OP said the GBA had “once again” exposed itself to public ridicule and the criticism of OP.
In its statement issued yesterday evening, OP said the GBA was attempting to create a nexus between Jagdeo’s comments at the police officers conference in April and Rohee’s, which was made last month and published in the Kaieteur News, and which OP had disassociated itself from, when there was none. It said that the GBA’s suggestion that a criticism of the judiciary was essentially to be viewed as a threat was ludicrous.
“The PPP/C administration does not see any challenge of the executive by the judiciary. This view has been stated repeatedly, but obviously the statement by the Office of the President and its implication has been lost and not understood by the bar association,” OP said.
“The bar retreats into its standard posture that criticism by the administration is an act of intimidation. The fact that public criticisms follow the actions, decisions and career of public officers including judicial officers worldwide, seems lost on the bar,” it added. “Moreover, the bar seems unable to grasp that the lack of criticism is no endorsement of professionalism and conduct in the discharge of functions, especially judicial.
“The administration is on record as recognizing the benefits of criticisms. Surely the bar association is not making a plea for the judiciary to be constitutionally exempted.”
OP further accused the GBA of foot-dragging on a two-month-old request from the Joint Legislative Drafting Committee of Cabinet for its comments on a circulated draft bill on judicial decision making.
The GBA, in a press release issued on Friday, had referred to Jagdeo’s comment, “We have witnessed some element of judicial lawmaking and I hope that you will look into that to see that the judges and the magistrates abide with the laws of the country and the will of the legislature because we need a fair judiciary that is bound by the laws of the country, so we need to work on that.”
It had said that the exhortation to look into and see that “the judges and the magistrates abide with the laws of the country” could be interpreted as a threat aimed at the judicial officers of this country, a notion that was improper and violated the Constitution.
“When the statement is further embellished with the words that ‘we need a fair judiciary that is bound by the laws of the country’ this suggests that the judiciary is not fair and is not bounded by the laws,” the GBA said.
It also highlighted Rohee’s statement: “We now have bail applications being granted to murder accused. The judiciary has now become totally unpredictable and case law is now thrown out the window”, calling it unfortunate and unjustified as it implied that the minister was more au fait with case law than the courts or indeed the legal profession.
“Such an assertion and attack on the judges and the legal profession is unacceptable and the GBA is of the considered view that the judges and the legal profession should not be made scapegoats for the failure of the law enforcement agencies to do their job of intelligently investigating and prosecuting crimes,” the press release had said.
OP had immediately distanced itself from Rohee’s statements. However, the GBA noted that the President had previously made critical statements himself, which in the light of what Rohee had said, raised serious implications regarding policy.
The GBA had said that as Guyanese we all need to understand and at the very least realize that the judicial system was staffed by human beings with flaws, but who must be presumed to be acting with professional integrity. To threaten the judiciary, it said, “is to shake the very foundations of our society and wake the beast of anarchy. These statements can be interpreted as an attempt to intimidate persons who hold judicial office and make them fearful of deciding matters in a manner that the executive does not approve.”
The GBA urged that there be a more sober and tempered approach, which would avoid the recent utterances. What was needed instead, it said, was a commitment to revamp law enforcement systemically whilst working with the judiciary to achieve a common understanding for the good of the country and all of its citizens as a whole.
Rohee’s criticism had been aimed at Chief Justice Ian Chang who had granted bail to a man accused of murdering two people.
Justice Chang had responded that in a democratic state, the executive and the judiciary could not live cozily together as this was democratically unhealthy. He added that some tension between the judiciary and executive was inevitable and must be accepted as normal, noting that it was meant to be so in the political structure of the state in which the doctrine of the separation of power inhered. “Such tension,” Justice Chang said, was a good sign of a democratically healthy state.”
