Magistrate Yohhannseh Cave has filed a $10M libel suit in the High Court against the National Media and Publishing Company Ltd over an article published in the Kaieteur News which he said has injured his reputation.
Chief Justice (ag) Ian Chang has since granted an injunction against the newspaper’s publishers restraining them from re-publishing the contents of the article in question until the matter is determined in the High Court. This followed an ex-parte application by the Magistrate through his attorney, Nigel Hughes on Friday.
In the High Court application the Magistrate said that he has enjoyed an unblemished reputation since being appointed in that capacity, and that he has presided over several courts on the east coast corridor concurrently, but is the current presiding magistrate at Sparendaam court.
He pointed to statements made in the article that reported how he spends limited time on the bench [spending at most one hour a day on the bench], and that he is delaying matters at the court.
Magistrate Cave said the allegations are untrue and without justification, noting that he had cause to write the newspaper’s publishers on Thursday demanding a retraction and apology, but that he failed to elicit a response. He said that the claims made in the newspaper article titled, ‘Sparendaam Magistrate’s Court angers lawyers’ were intended to mean that he is lazy; that he is not diligent with the discharge of his responsibilities as a Magistrate.
The matter comes up for hearing later this week.
