Chief Justice (ag) Roxane George last Friday awarded attorney Tamieka Clarke $700,000 in damages over her brief arrest by agents of the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) on October 28 last year while advising her client and she has since received an apology.
The acting Chief Jus-tice, whose judgment was entered on Monday, also ordered Superintendent of Police Krishnadat Ramana, on whose orders Clarke was arrested and SOCU within seven days of her order to issue “an unequivocal apology” to the lawyer. They were also ordered that the apology was to declare their understanding of the right of an attorney-at-law to advise their clients to remain silent, and to engage with their clients in private, albeit they may remain in the sight of investigators.
A third order, according to the judgment shared by Clarke’s attorney Nigel Hughes, instructed the Guyana Police Force to within seven days of her order to issue a commitment to include in its training curriculum for all officers and ranks training on articles 39 (2) and 139 of the Constitution of Guyana, the Human Rights Conventions enshrined in the Constitution.