Dear Editor,

I am absolutely fed up and perpetually nonplussed every time I read an article in a major newspaper and get an entire story with great detail but no names or identities. It is not strange to read an article in a Guyana newspaper that clearly contains facts that were unearthed by reasonable investigation and verification but then know nothing of the identity of the individual, because the newspaper fails to mention it. Understandably, the current weak state of the libel laws in Guyana forces restraint from newspapers as they have to weigh facing a mountain of legal costs against telling the truth. However, something has to give and in a meaningful manner. In corrupt nations where democracy is threatened by bureaucracy, nepotism, party paramountcy and rampant waste and scandalous losses, and when the option of legislative change is chilled, media organizations have to take leaps of faith into the morass and challenge the state of the law in the courts in the hope of change.

If a newspaper of a burgeoning narco-state cannot identify drug suspects because broken libel laws create an automatic fear of legal action, the nation suffers a terrible crime of silence. True, published statements are truths. An individual named X was arrested by the police on grounds of narcotics trafficking is as true a statement as X is charged with narcotics trafficking. In nations such as Guyana publication of verified information should be allowed on the basis of public interest publication, a principle studiously upheld by independent courts of developed nations. The difficulty posed by the libel laws in Guyana can be overcome by newspapers establishing a proper evidentiary background to the verification of facts, collection of information and documentation of the story. If a reporter is investigating misconduct of an official he/she should videotape or record evidence of eyewitnesses so that they could later, if necessary, establish where they obtained their facts in order to publish the particulars of the incident and the identity of the official.

The government needs to change the current libel laws to give greater power to press freedom and to stir debate on matters of public importance. A change in the laws is not a loss of power, but it would give the courts the leverage to award greater punitive awards to those who abuse the relaxed powers. This is exactly what has happened in developed nations where the courts have in a relaxed legislative environment heavily punished those who publish libellous information that is not within the public interest and not without proper verification. Political parties have also effectively used the relaxed laws to deal more powerfully with internal corruption and misconduct. Once the misconduct is published and the politician identified in the public interest it gives the political organization greater flexibility to pursue action against the individual, including sanction and expulsion. The political organization is then seen as transparent and intolerant of misconduct within its own ranks. The organization struggling with internal corruption can now rely on an external source to compel it to action whereas various factors would have stymied it before. A corrupt official can be reprimanded by simply pointing to the published facts in the media.

Yours faithfully,
Michael Maxwell