Dear Editor,
In the course of my continuing professional education, I had to study a decision of the Caribbean Court of Justice which deprived the owner by transport of land in Georgetown “through no fault of his own” although he never transferred or authorised anyone to do so. This judgment declared another person to be the new owner in spite of him receiving his Transport by way of a forged Power of Attorney (See M.Todd .v. D. Price and A.J. Jeboo [2021] CCJ 2 (AJ) GY). So flummoxed was I that two young but relatively experienced lawyers in current practice were invited to consider this unprecedented, outlandish, (pun intended) unconstitutional process to me. They were equally bewildered in their response. I then requested them to express their distress with this ruling of our highest Court and I undertook, upon receipt of their remonstration about the consequences flowing therefrom, to append my endorsement for this exclusive expertise and juristic wisdom. As your Editor so appositely reminded us in “Quote of the day”, in more ways than one, Benjamin Disraeli posited “Precedent embalms a principle.”
Perhaps, this is the kind of decision-making that has inspired and since perpetuated the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago from “joining the CCJ”, in spite of their political timbre expressed prior to 2004 for the establishment and seat of that Court in Port of Spain. Not without significance, a T&T High Court Judge, in stark embrace of the settled Common Law on the issue of transfer of title to property, albeit by way of a money transfer done, inter alia, without lawful authority, declared the transaction void (see CIB v. Monteil et al, reported in Trinidad Guardian in the last week of April, 2021 and SN on the 1/5/21). Our Attorney-General, as the custodian of the constitutional rights of all Guyanese, ought to publicly lend his agitation for this proprietary predicament. Unless the floodgate of fraud is manned by an ever vigilant operator, knaves may seek refuge of an unwitting facilitator or the CCJ. Prudent decision-making is best configured by the lessons of experience minted in reason. Reform of legislation as recommended by the CCJ is no substitute for judicial interpretation that may presage the ruination of an ordinary landowner!
To meet this lacuna Guyana may exercise its sovereign power by reference to its legislative arm of Government, as it did to dismantle the cul-de-sac constructed by our Full Court’s decision in the Dataram Extradition proceedings in 2009. Edgar Mortimer Duke, Fenton W. Flarcourt Ramsahoye and Kenneth Montague George, without question, and reputedly regarded as the eminence of the Law of Immovable Property in Guyana, must be livid in their abode. Lest the public may gather impressions about the peculiar insulation of Judges from criticism, I am prepared to take a risk to assure, with authority that no immunity exists either at Common Law, or, in our Constitutional construct.
Sincerely,
Charles Ramson SC
