It was chartered accountant and attorney Christopher Ram who first drew public attention to the fact that six ministers of government attended the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) hearings on the no-confidence vote case in Trinidad earlier this month. Last week, the newly installed Director-General of the Ministry of the Presidency Joseph Harmon informed the media that the government had funded the excursion.
It might be observed that the government’s decision to renege on its original pronouncement that it would recognise the no-confidence vote of last December 21 must have already cost the taxpayer an indecently large sum. Of course, as often happens with our political parties when cases of a constitutional or political nature are involved, the initial court action did not come in the name of the AG. It was filed by Mr Compton Reid, who was reported to be a Berbice farmer. Once the case had gone to court in the first instance, however, it was clear that it was destined to advance all the way to the CCJ, since no matter what the outcome, it was bound to be appealed and the government and its agencies would inevitably become a party to proceedings.
Exactly who underwrote Mr Reid’s court expenses has never been disclosed, although theoretically, one supposes, some of the legal work may have been undertaken pro bono. That possibility aside, one surmises that the bill would have been substantial, since press references mention that he had more than one lawyer, including Neil Boston, SC at the CCJ.
Chief Justice (ag) Roxane George-Wiltshire’s decision of January 31 validating the no-confidence vote caused the government to emerge from the shadows, and the matter went to appeal. By a majority decision handed down on March 22, the Guyana Court of Appeal overturned the Chief Justice’s ruling.
By the time the CCJ was reached, there were three challenges, namely, Mr Ram against the AG, Mr Jagdeo and Mr Harmon; Mr Jagdeo against the AG, Dr Scotland and Mr Harmon; and Mr Persaud against Mr Reid, Dr Scotland, Mr Jagdeo and Mr Harmon. The court consolidated the three because the matters were related; it has not yet handed down its ruling.
Given the number of challenges and its anxiety to win the case, the government hired a phalanx of lawyers, including some high-profile names from the Caribbean. One of them was Eamon Courtenay, SC, a former Attorney General of Belize, and another was Dr Francis Alexis, QC, a Grenadian whose fee the government had declined to reveal for his appearances before the Court of Appeal. Then there were reports of two Barbadian SCs, Hal Gollup and Ralph Thorne, in addition to Guyanese attorneys who have not been named here. It has been reported, however, that Mr Harmon’s legal counsel were Roysdale Forde and Olayne Joseph, while Dr Scotland was represented by Rafiq Khan, SC and the Commission by Stanley Marcus. As mentioned above, in the circumstances the legal bill which will be charged to taxpayers either directly or indirectly, will not be modest.
And to add to that we now have the trip to watch proceedings at the CCJ by six government ministers, once again, courtesy of the taxpayer. According to media reports, present at the hearings were Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs Minister Sydney Allicock, Public Service Minister Tabitha Sarabo-Halley, Social Cohesion Minister Dr George Norton, Education Minister Nicolette Henry, Business Minister Haimraj Rajkumar, and Communities Minister Ronald Bulkan. There is one qualification, however: Stabroek News was told that while five of the ministers were present for two days, Mr Bulkan was seen in court only on day two.
Well the first thing everyone will want to know is didn’t any of these senior members of government have any work to do in their ministries? If not, then they are clearly redundant, and the President should acknowledge he has too many ministers for the country’s good. How, for example, can the Ministry of Education, a large and complex institution which is into exam season, afford to have its most senior functionary wasting time for two days on an exercise which has absolutely nothing whatever to do with its remit? If it is just an excuse to escape, then Ms Henry, who has never shone in the field in any case, is obviously in the wrong job.
Then there is the newly appointed Minister of Business, Mr Haimraj Rajkumar, who one would have thought would need the time to get a handle on his new post. Or are we to infer that this was not a serious appointment, and his ministry can afford to do without him? As if it were not enough that the ministers were there, according to Mr Ram they had a companion in the form of attorney Darren Wade, who was not part of the government legal team. Just what, one wonders, was he doing, if he had no specific responsibility in relation to the proceedings? In the absence of evidence to the contrary, one must presume that the cost of his presence too will be another burden on the taxpayer.
We reported Mr Harmon as telling the media that the ministers “were there based on a decision of Cabinet after a long and careful deliberation of the issues related to the matter at the CCJ.” And what did Cabinet think was so important that it necessitated their presence?
We quoted him as saying that they “represented their party to the CCJ, that is, the government. The government of course will have the legal attorneys who are presenting their case.” He went on to remark that often a judge who is dealing with a matter in a courtroom will look at various things, including the party’s interest in the proceedings and whether “they don’t appear and if they appear and so on.” So those, he said, were the “representatives of the government.”
This is all very odd. Judges do not take into account who or who is not sitting in the spectators’ gallery in support of a respondent or a defendant; judgments are based exclusively on the case presented in court. Since it is unthinkable that Cabinet persuaded itself that the justices of the CCJ could be intimidated, just what, exactly, was the reasoning behind sending the ministers to while away the time in the Trinidad courtroom?
In a letter of May 10 published in this newspaper, Mr Ram pointed out that the proceedings were livestreamed and could have been accessed from anywhere in Guyana. Is it that the government is so technically challenged that it was not aware of that? For his part Mr Ram dismissed the possibility that the ministers were there to give moral support to the AG. One can only add that if Mr Williams really does need moral support in a case of this kind, he must feel either that it is very weak, or then again, he too is simply in the wrong job.
“Responsible government requires that taxpayers’ money is properly spent and fully accounted for,” wrote Mr Ram. Indeed.
