While stating that the Acting Chief Justice and Chancellor are working and the country is not in crisis, President Irfaan Ali would not commit to a timeframe for substantive appointments but hinted that the Judicial Services Commission would be first set up.
“We don’t have a Judicial Service Com-mission [JSC] as yet. You can’t look at an entire judiciary without having a holistic solution. So let me say very clearly at the appropriate time, the matter of the Chancellor and the Chief Justice will be brought on the agenda. You have a chancellor. You have someone performing the duties of a chancellor right now. How do you think I was sworn in? Who swore the president in? It is the chancellor, the Acting Chancellor who swore to present. So I don’t know, it’s not like the country’s without a chancellor,” he told the Stabroek News in an exclusive interview on Monday.
Justice Yonette Cummings-Edwards and Justice Roxane George SC were respectively appointed acting Chancellor of the Judiciary and Chief Justice back in 2016 and 2017, following the retirement of then acting Chancellor Carl Singh, who was also never confirmed despite having served for 12 years.
Guyana has not had a confirmed Chancellor for 17 years.
There have been calls from several sections of society for the substantive appointments of Chancellor and Chief Justice, but successive governments have failed to do so.
In a letter dated May 12, 2022, and addressed to Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance Gail Teixeira, Leader of the Opposition Aubrey Norton signalled his intention to agree to confirm the appointment of the two justices as Chancellor and Chief Justice.
Ali was also told of the support pledged by the opposition APNU+AFC to support the appointments for substantive appointments to the post.
He said that “the opposition wants to be selective” in its giving of its support but that he will decide when the appointments will be made.
“Now I am saying that at the appropriate time the Chancellor and the Chief Justice situation will be sorted out. At the appropriate time,” he stressed.
“There is a mechanism that that is there constitutionally for these offices to be filled, and you can rest assured this Presi-dent is going to follow the Consti-tution,” he added.
He pointed to the two acting justices saying that work is being done by them.
“We have we have Justice [Yonette] Cummings, who is performing the duties of Chancellor. She is acting as Chancellor at the moment. We have an active Chief Justice. The country is not without a Chief Justice and Chancellor. We are we have two persons who are performing the duties in those areas.”
Asked if given that the JSC requires the Chancellor be a part of its makeup, if he would allow a person in an acting capacity to be on that body, he would only say, “My priority is to have the JSC established and commence work.”
The previous week, he had echoed similar sentiments when asked about the issue. He said that his government isn’t stalling the process and will commence the process when the constitutional commissions are effectively set up.
“We are not at the stage of addressing those issues as yet. There is nothing stall-ing, it is just that we have not commenced that as yet. We are trying to complete the Judicial Service Commission. These things must be in place almost instantaneously,” he had said.
“Now we have the clearance, we are hoping to get the Teaching Service Com-mission constituted. We are hoping to have the Judicial Service Commission in full effect and then we will move our focus,” he added.
Former Speaker of the National Assembly and prominent attorney-at-law Ralph Ramkarran SC, last month pointed out that there is nothing stopping the appointments, even as he noted that the “ President’s consideration of the matter in his ‘deliberate judgement’ cannot be open- ended.”
“The President has a lawful responsibility under the constitution to make these appointments. It is not contemplated by the constitution that if there is no obstacle to the appointments, that the President’s ‘deliberate judgment’ can serve to indefinitely delay the performance of this vital constitutional duty. The Attorney General is expected to advise accordingly,” Ramkarran said.
Ramkarran had also highlighted that the Judicial Service Commission was not appointed and that it seemed that matters of the judiciary were not important.
“The failure to appoint a Chancellor and Chief Justice and the Judicial Service Commission is a clear indication that the collective does not consider the judiciary as an agency of any importance or its problems as a matter of urgency, notwithstanding its constitutional status. This is extremely shortsighted. Investors are flooding into Guyana. Among their prominent concerns are the integrity of the security forces and the efficiency of the judiciary. The former is under public scrutiny. Problems affecting the latter remain unaddressed for no known reason,” he said.
