The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) yesterday dismissed the substantive appeal brought by Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed and his father, businessman Nazar Mohamed, challenging extradition proceedings against them and proceedings will now resume at the Georgetown Magistrate’s Court.
It is likely that more legal proceedings and recourse to the CCJ will be sought as the extradition process resumes in the Magistrate’s Court before Chief Magistrate Judy Latchman.
The CCJ declared that while the rule against bias applies to the Minister of Home Affairs’ decision to issue an Authority to Proceed (ATP), there was no evidence that the decision was unlawfully tainted by bias.
The Court had granted special leave for the Mohameds appeal but dismissed the appeal and lifted the interim stay it had imposed on the extradition proceedings before the Georgetown Magistrate’s Court on March 25 this year and ordered that there be no order as to costs before the CCJ.
Reading the majority judgment on behalf of himself and CCJ President Justice Winston Anderson, Justice Denys Barrow said the Mohameds had successfully met the threshold required for special leave because “it was arguable that the Court below was wrong to decide that the rule against bias did not apply to the issuance of the ATP.”
However, after hearing the substantive appeal, the Court reached a different conclusion.
Justice Barrow said the judges found that “the rule against bias does apply to the ministerial grant of the ATP, but that the question of whether there had been a violation of that rule had to be determined by the context in which that question arose.”
He explained that the Authority to Proceed is only the first stage of the extradition process and “does not import the full panoply of procedural rights available in judicial proceedings.”
“There was no general right to be heard prior to the issuance of the ATP,” Barrow said.
“There was no requirement for the Minister issuing the ATP to be free from political bias. What was required was for the Minister to engage in a process that allowed for consideration of the factors contemplated by the Act.”
The Court found that the Mohameds had failed to demonstrate any defect in that statutory process.
“The applicants had not challenged the process that led to the issuance of the ATP save for the allegation that the Minister was politically biased. There was no allegation that the Minister omitted to consider a relevant factor, or that she considered an irrelevant one,” Justice Barrow said.
Addressing the Attorney General’s role, the Court held that although the Attorney General is the Government’s principal legal adviser, his participation did not invalidate the Minister’s decision.
“While the Attorney General, as Chief Legal Adviser to the Government, must necessarily be circumspect in any comment on extradition requests upon which his advice may be sought, the decision to issue the ATP was statutorily vested in, and was, as a matter of fact, exercised by the Minister, with very minimal advice from the Attorney General.”
“In these circumstances, determination of whether the Attorney General was biased served no probative value,” the Court ruled.
The majority also used the case to establish guidance for future extradition challenges.
Justice Barrow said the judges were of the view that, except where “it is manifestly clear that the extradition proceedings must fail,” challenges to an Authority to Proceed should ordinarily not interrupt committal proceedings.
“Their Honours expressed the considered view that it should become the practice in our courts… that while challenges to the issuance of the ATP may be brought at any time, such challenges should only be heard after the completion of the committal proceedings.”
The Court said such an approach “will be consistent with the international framework for extradition, encourage prompt performance of extradition treaty obligations, and provide a reasonable balance between the interests of the person whose extradition is requested and that of the State.”
On delegation, Justice Barrow said the majority found it unnecessary to determine whether the Minister or Attorney General should have delegated their statutory powers because the bias challenge had failed.
Nevertheless, the judges expressed “grave doubts that there could properly be delegation of the powers under the Act to issue the ATP to any person who was not a Minister.”
Prematurity
A separate judgment delivered by Justices Maureen Rajnauth-Lee, Peter Jamadar and Arif Bulkan agreed that the appeal should be dismissed but differed significantly in their reasoning.
The judges held that there was “no legal basis” preventing the Mohameds from challenging the Authority to Proceed before committal proceedings concluded, stating that “prematurity does not arise in the circumstances of this case.”
“There is pragmatic good sense to the issue being raised at the earliest stage possible,” they said.
They also rejected the respondents’ waiver argument, finding that “it cannot be said that the applicants were plainly aware of all the relevant facts or that by their conduct they clearly and unequivocally waived their right to object on the ground of bias.”
Although they concluded that no appearance of bias had been established against the Minister, they reached a different conclusion regarding Attorney General Anil Nandlall.
The judges found “there was a real possibility that the Attorney General was biased.”
However, they ruled that “the Attorney General’s apparent bias had not so contaminated the process as to raise a real possibility that the decision of the Minister to issue the ATP was vitiated by bias.”
The three judges also delivered one of the strongest observations in the judgment concerning public commentary by government officials.
They said “the public statements by the Vice President and the Attorney General referencing the existing judicial proceedings can undermine the independence of the judiciary and have deleterious effects on the administration of justice and the rule of law in Guyana.”
“They are to be denounced.”
In a third concurring judgment, Justices Chantal Ononaiwu and Chile Eboe-Osuji emphasised that allegations of bias must be assessed through the eyes of “the fair-minded, reasonable observer, fully informed of all the material facts and circumstances.”
“The law eschews the blinkered view in the appraisal of bias,” the judges said.
“A fair-minded and informed observer… is also not to be led astray by conspiracy theories in the absence of credible evidence.”
They also concluded that, generally, separate judicial review proceedings challenging an ATP should not run alongside extradition proceedings.
“There is no need, as a general proposition, for a separate track of judicial review for the ATP alone.”
Instead, they said, objections should first be raised before the magistrate hearing the extradition proceedings.
At the conclusion of the hearing, President Anderson thanked counsel for their written and oral submissions, describing the matter as “a complicated matter,” and said the Court was “very grateful for both the written and oral assistance provided by counsel.”
He said attorneys would have 24 hours to review the written judgment for clerical or typographical corrections before it is uploaded to the Court’s website, adding that there is “no embargo on disclosure of the content of the judgment.”
The Court also reserved the question of costs in the High Court and Court of Appeal for later directions through a case management conference.
Red flags
In their judgment, Justices, Jamadar, Rajnauth-Lee and Bulkan identified red flags that could raise in the minds of people as to procedural fairness in the extradition proceedings.
They itemised them as follows:
(a) How come the formal procedures for the extradition of the Applicants accelerated after Azruddin Mohamed’s surprise showing at the September general election, when an investigation into their activities had started years earlier and sanctions were applied as far back as June 2024?
(b) Why was the convening of Parliament delayed by two months following the declaration of the results of the September general election?
(c) Was it sheer coincidence that the request for the Authority to Proceed with the extradition arrived on 28 October 2025, shortly before Parliament was set to be convened, and when there was no longer any possibility of constitutionally delaying this event any further?
(d) How was the MOHA able to properly process and approve the ATP in a couple of days (based on the Record), and on the Applicants’ account, in a mere matter of hours, given the volume of matters that she had to consider and be satisfied of?
(e) What was the true extent of the advice given by and influence of the Attorney General on the MOHA, in light of the fact that the MOHA is an attorney herself and ought to have been able to complete a statutory form on her own?
(f) What was the impact on the MOHA of the prejudicial statements of the Attorney General about the Second Applicant, made before and after the ATP was issued, which consistently described the Applicants as criminals, bearing in mind they are Cabinet colleagues and he functioned as a senior adviser? And, similarly, what was the impact on the MOHA of the
prejudicial statements made by the President and Vice President?
(g) Why did an American lobbying firm retained by the Guyana government at the cost of USD50,000 per month send suggested tweets to a United States congressman ‘for consideration’ in which the Second Applicant is linked to Maduro, and then refuse to disclose the basis for the suggested
tweets?
(h) Even though the allegations of the United States Treasury Department relate specifically to domestic evasion of taxes within Guyana, why did senior members of the Guyana government allege – without evidence – that the Second Applicant is a Maduro puppet?
(i) Parliament having been eventually convened on 3 November 2025, why
was the routine election of the Leader of the Opposition delayed for a further twelve weeks?
(j) What is the import of the Attorney General’s public statements that extradition proceedings should be wrapped up in days, in light of the delays in convening Parliament and then holding the election for Leader of the Opposition?
(k) Why were local charges brought only against the Applicants, when sanctions were imposed by the United States Government both on the Applicants and an identified Permanent Secretary, and according to the official release by the United States Treasury Department, government officials were also implicated?
To summarise, the judges said that the objective facts here are that once the Second Applicant performed as he did at the election, these proceedings to extradite him took on renewed vigour, coming to fruition on the eve of the convening of Parliament. The MOHA, who issued the ATP, was advised
by the Attorney General – who in spite of his high constitutional office and as a minister of justice in Guyana, consistently and overtly displayed behaviours and made statements indicative of bias against the Applicants.
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