-reprimands lower courts for sloth in completing written judgments
The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) on Wednesday ruled that the High Court should proceed with a decades-old action filed by the Guyana National Co-operative Bank against R. N. Persaud Company Limited, to recoup debts owed.
The CCJ, in doing so, set aside three lower court rulings on the matter, finding that they were erroneous in law, and ordered that the substantive matter be remitted to the High Court to be dealt with expeditiously.
“In consequence, and considering that the case before us has been in the judicial system for some two decades, we consider it appropriate to grant the orders sought by the Bank in the Full Court, that is, to deem the lower court’s decision erroneous in law, since the contempt proceedings were interlocutory and as such the substantive matter was not deserted or abandoned having regard to the fact that the Request for Hearing was filed within time,” the CCJ stated. However, noting that transport to the rice milling land has been passed to one Jai Krishna Singh, who is not a party to the proceedings, the court stated that it could make no orders in that regard.
“It is not appropriate for this Court to make orders which can potentially affect the interests of third parties who are not party to the proceedings before it. In consequence, the interests of justice dictate that this Court makes an order that the substantive matter be remitted for trial in the High Court. Bearing in mind the time that has already passed it is recommended that this trial be held not later than within the next six months,” it was stated.
The bank had filed proceedings against R N Persaud Company Limited (first respondent), the Leguan Rice Milling Incorporated (second respondent), and the Registrar of Deeds (third respondent), in 1999, after R N Persaud failed to honour its agreement to satisfy a debt owed to the bank, which at the time had increased to $585,842,466.00.
After the company sold a portion of the land mortgaged to Leguan Rice Milling Incorporated, a decision the bank did become aware of until after the time of opposition had elapsed, the bank was granted an interim injunction to halt the parties from proceeding with the passing of the transport.
However, despite this, the transport was passed to the milling company, causing the bank to file a motion to have the respondents committed to prison for contempt of court.
In 2012, a month before the 10-year period since the initial application had been filed, R N Persaud Company Limited applied to have the bank’s claim dismissed for abandonment.
In 2014, a High Court ruling was made by Justice Dawn Gregory, who declared that the action had been abandoned, after a declaration was sought by the named respondents. The bank did not become aware of this declaration until three years later, at which time it appealed the decision.
In April, 2018, the Full Court dismissed an appeal made by the Bank on the ground that contempt proceedings initiated by them were not interlocutory in nature, and therefore, “did not interrupt the running of time for the purposes of abandonment”.
After the bank appealed to the Court of Appeal, that court questioned whether the Full Court had jurisdiction and returned the matter to the lower court for a determination on whether it had jurisdiction to entertain the appeal.
Meanwhile, as the Trinidad-based CCJ of last resort for Guyana has consistently had to do, it once again had cause to reprimand the local courts over its slothfulness in providing written judgments.
In its ruling, the regional court said it was an unfortunate and unsatisfactory aspect of the appeal before it, that there was the absence of written judgments given in the courts below in respect of a case which has been ongoing since 1999 and which has involved a great multiplicity of proceedings and procedural disputes.
The court noted that notwithstanding the extensive submissions made before both the High Court and the Full Court, no written judgments or decisions of those courts have been made available to it.
The CCJ said that the only transcript which forms part of the record of appeal before it is the decision of the Court of Appeal given on 23rd July, 2018.
The CCJ highlighted its plight of having been “left to garner” the nature of the Full Court’s decision from a copy of the “handwritten note” of Justice Damone Younge, one of the two judges who presided over the matter there.
The case was heard by CCJ judges David Hayton, Winston Anderson, Maureen Rajnauth-Lee, Denys Barrow, and Andrew Burgess.
Representing the bank was attorney Timothy Jonas, while R.N Persaud and the Leguan Rice Milling Company were represented by attorney Sanjeev Datadin.
Meanwhile, the Registrar of Deeds was represented by Solicitor General Nigel Hawke and Deputy Solicitor General Debra Kumar.
