It seems ironic but despite the ruling of Chief Justice Ian Chang that sports associations are not legal entities and as such cannot sue or be sued, sport today seems to be played more in the Courts than on the courts.
This is especially the case with cricket.
Chang’s landmark ruling came in the case of Angela Haniff against the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) when Haniff, representing the Berbice Cricket Board (BCB), an affiliate of the GCB, sought the Court’s intervention to decide the legality of elections of the GCB in 2011. Part of Chang’s ruling then stated…“The court can therefore give no recognition to the plaintiff Angela Haniff in her capacity as Secretary (of) the BCB (Berbice Cricket Board) or in her capacity as a delegate of the BCB when BCB has no capacity to sue or be sued in (a) court of law. Similarly, the court can give no recognition to either of the named defendants in their capacities of office-holders or representative(s) of the GCB since, in short, all the parties before this court are legal nonentities and the court is not the proper forum or avenue for any relief or redress involving the GCB or any of its members, the BCB, the DCB or the ECB,.” Chang had ruled in 2011.
Yet, despite Chang’s ruling there have been a plethora of cases where officials of associations and sub associations have been taken to court to prevent them from performing their duties until the issues are ironed out.
Counting the amount of times injunctions have been filed against associations and sub associations on cricket-related issues would make one dizzy.
Officials of the Demerara Cricket Board (DCB), the Georgetown Cricket Association (GCA) and, recently, the BCB, have all been slapped with injunctions preventing the elected officials from functioning.
In some cases the injunctions are contemptuously disregarded and even the Court seems powerless to deal with the obvious contempt of Court scenarios.
The fact that the GCB was not a legal entity was one reason why the Minister of Sport, Dr. Frank Anthony, decided to bring the GCB in line with Trinidad and Barbados, whose national cricket boards are legal entities by setting up an Interim Management Committee (IMC) tasked with among other things, arriving at a new constitution.
The Guyana Cricket Administration Act, which was subsequently passed in parliament, and
the appointment of a Cricket Ombudsman were done for all intents and purposes to streamline the operations of the GCB and its affiliates.
Before all this in the midst of the chaos that was Guyana’s cricket at a period when both the IMC and the GCB were battling to run cricket in Guyana, Chairman of the Interim Management Committee Lloyd had been forced in 2012 to write President Donald Ramotar over the disregard of an injunction against the GCB.
“I have decided to write His Excellency, outlining the situation here. The situation now is definitely out of control and something has to be done quickly to have it resolved, you can’t have a group of people served with an injunction and they continue to perform,” Lloyd said.
The members of the GCB at that time were restrained from holding themselves out as members of the executive committee of the Guyana Cricket Board, because an interim injunction had been granted.
Now, a similar situation exists.
Although there is supposed to be an injunction in place, the DCB seems to be in operation. Last Friday, a group of persons met at the GNIC Sports Club and set April 30 for the holding of DCB elections.
This should be interesting as there is already another group holding themselves out to be representatives of the DCB.
The upshot of all of this is that even the appointment of the Cricket Ombudsman who was appointed to regularise the situation existing in the GCB has been unable to function as his appointment has been challenged and is also before the Court.
So what is the way forward?
A solution is only possible with the full cooperation of the WICB which continues to recognize the current GCB administration and the government.
Now that he has won a second term of office it would be good to see WICB President Dave Cameron embrace the government’s attempt to make the GCB a legal entity and try to bring an end to this sorry situation in Guyana for the continuous Court actions will set Guyana’s cricket back, regardless of the performances of this country’s representative national teams.
The WICB must understand the role players like Lloyd, Rohan Kanhai, Lance Gibbs, Basil Butcher, Joe Solomon and others played in putting West Indies cricket on the map and they must be made to understand that players from this country make up the West Indies team. Already the Guyana Jaguars have won the PCL four-day competition (in spite of the existing turmoil here) and a number of its players are in line for selection when England tours the Caribbean.
But there needs to be some way forward so that cricket in this country can be played free from the Court actions that only stymie the development of the young players many of whom are the future of West Indies cricket.
