The Office of the Leader of the Opposition yesterday denounced President David Granger’s establishment of a tribunal to determine whether Carvil Duncan should be removed as Chairman of the Public Service Commission, while saying it would prejudice the ongoing court case against the veteran trade unionist.
Duncan is currently awaiting a decision on charges that he stole and conspired to steal from the Guyana Power and Light Inc (GPL), while he was a serving member of its governing board.
Although President Granger said that the establishment of the tribunal represents the commitment of his administration to due process, the Office of Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo, in a statement released yesterday, charged that the decision to set up the body is “premature, pre-emptive and repugnant” to the very “due process” to which the President says that his administration is committed.
“Indeed, the establishment of this Tribunal smacks of exactly the opposite: caprice, arbitrariness and witch-hunting. It is public knowledge that Mr Duncan has been a stumbling block at the Public Service Commission, preventing this Administration from dismissing public servants on ethnic and political grounds and blocking the hiring of unqualified cronies,” the statement said.
The constitution, it noted, confers upon Duncan a presumption of innocence until proven guilty by a court of law.
“The establishment of this tribunal will have a prejudicial impact upon the pending legal proceedings as the President has sent a clear signal to the Presiding Magistrate what outcome the Executive expects,” it added, while calling the establishment of this tribunal a travesty of justice and an assault upon constitutional due process and the fundamental rights of Carvil Duncan and the thousands of workers whose interests and welfare he protects.
Justice Roxane George will head the tribunal, which also comprises (ret’d) Justice Winston Patterson and attorney-at-law Robert Ramcharran. They were all sworn in on Thursday.
When approached after the swearing-in ceremony, Justice George said that the members were yet to receive the terms of reference and therefore she could not indicate the process the tribunal would take in completing its task.
In March, Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo had written Duncan “requesting that he show cause why a tribunal should not be established, as provided for by Article 225 of the Constitution of Guyana, to address the question of his removal from the constitutional offices of Chairman of the Public Service Commission and member of the Police Service Commission and Judicial Service Commission.”
In the letter, the Prime Minister advised Duncan that the procedure had been invoked on the basis that the offences for which he has been charged, place him in a position where it was necessary for him to defend the charges before the court. He added that there was also concern that during this period Duncan would be unable to perform the duties imposed upon him by the constitution in relation to the three constitutional offices.
The letter had requested that Duncan respond within 14 days of its receipt, but no response had been received up to the time the Prime Minister’s Office made the letter public. It is not clear if Duncan responded.
