Dear Editor,
An online version of a newspaper published a report of the suspension of a magistrate by the Judicial Service Commission on the ground of alleged misconduct during the hearing of a case. One daily newspaper had published my comment on the disclosures of the country’s Attorney General in a conversation intended for his friend, but trespassing on the public interest. My letter spoke in particular on what he revealed about the dangers women face in the workplace from money and power.
Today’s report opens up another danger. It supports my suspicion that for some strange reason respect for women in their own right in Guyana is rationed like a privilege.
The magistrate was perhaps not officially taped, but the scene was an open courtroom and the Sparendaam courtroom is often crowded. The woman who made those allegations against the magistrate is every male’s mother, sister, wife, fiancée, friend. If the magistrate thought that he was giving a moral lesson then we should let him know that he did the opposite.
Perhaps if the President had made a public example using his power to hire and fire ministers, the AG on this ground alone, all magistrates and others would have known that their brief power with “government boots” gives them the chance not to blow off and show off but to set an example to their sex and their generation of really breaking away from the old.
Yours faithfully,
Eusi Kwayana
