Attorney at Law Anil Nandlall has on behalf of two PPP-aligned media houses challenged the legality of the governing board of the Guyana National Broadcasting Authority (GNBA) and asked the Court to declare sanctions issued by the board as “unconstitutional, unlawful, illegal, unenforceable, invalid, irrational, unreasonable, capricious, arbitrary, null, void and of no effect.”
In fixed date applications, filed on behalf of Freedom Radio and Multi-Technology Vision Inc (MTV), Nandlall contends that the last Board of the GNBA was appointed on February 1, 2017 by Prime Minister Moses Nagamatoo for a term of two years which has since expired without another Board of Directors being appointed or reappointed. In light of this fact Nandlall argues that the “Hearing Committee” which was set up by the board and which sanctioned the two media houses was illegitimate.
Additionally it is argued that the rules and guidelines used to sanction the media houses do not exist in law.
“There are no valid or lawful Rules to which the Applicant’s license is subject, as there has been no publication of Rules in the Official Gazette and any other section of the public,” the applications contend.
The case centres around utterances broadcast by Freedom Radio and MTV between February and July 2019 which the GNBA contends violate Section 20 of its guidelines to broadcasters by failing to avoid controversial or offensive references to opponents.
Freedom Radio was according to the submission brought before a Hearing Committee established by the GNBA board to answer to charges related to statements made on ‘Free talk’ with Manzoor Nadir on June 4 and on ‘The Chat’ with Ganga Persaud on June 11.
While the statements are not referenced it is made clear that the radio station was found culpable and fined $75,000 for the June 4 incident while for the June 11 incident the radio station was called on to “provide a written undertaking that the host will be advised that he must adhere to the guidelines and to the rudiments of proper broadcasting; by guiding his callers to desist from making inflammatory statements on Public airwaves. Not in a sense of censorship but in the spirit and intent of the Broadcasting Act and the Constitution of Guyana, to maintain decency and order in Broadcasting.”
In the case of MTV charges were brought based on utterances during the February 02, 2019 broadcast of Viewpoint with Ed Layne, the March 21, 2019 broadcast of “On the Precipice of a Constitutional Crisis with Priya Manickchand” and the June 08 broadcast of Ed Live: Controversial statements made against the Government.”
In each of these cases MTV was fined $50,000. The decision in each case was communicated to the media houses on October 2, 2019.
Nandlall has asked the court to declare that no Governing Board of Directors of the GNBA was lawfully appointed for the year 2019- 2020; to quash the decision of the hearing committee since it was appointed by a purported Governing Board of Directors that was not lawfully appointed.
He also asked the Court to declare that the decision communicated is unconstitutional, unlawful, illegal, unenforceable, invalid, irrational, unreasonable, capricious, arbitrary, null, void and of no effect; contrary to and in violation of the Applicant’s right and Freedom of Expression as guaranteed by Article 146 of the Constitution; in violation of the doctrine of separation of powers, contrary to and in violation of Article 144(8) of the Constitution of Guyana, unlawful, void, illegal and of no effect and that it is contrary to and in violation of the Applicant’s right and freedom to protection of the law as guaranteed by Article 144(8) of the Constitution of Guyana.
