-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.