Dear Editor,
I refer to your editorial of 15 August 2026 titled ‘Interference in top judicial appointments’, which condemns the President of the Caribbean Court of Justice for attempting to broker agreement on the substantive appointments of Chancellor and Chief Justice.
As the most senior judge adjudicating cases from Guyana, the President of the Caribbean Court of Justice has a clear interest in upholding the rule of law in Guyana.
The person who holds that office is therefore at least as interested in the substantive appointments of Chancellor and Chief Justice as the rest of us in Guyana. Those appointments were last made twenty-five years ago.
The Leader of the Opposition has only a limited and circumscribed power in the decision to choose a Chancellor and Chief Justice. He or she only has the power to refuse to proffer agreement. That refusal cannot be irrational. It must be based on some objective fact which entitles him or her to refuse to agree to a reasonable proposal for the appointment of Chancellor and Chief Justice.
The refusal must therefore be based on something which objectively should lead to the non-appointment of the Chancellor and Chief Justice, and no such fact exists. If there is no proper reason for refusal or an unreasonable delay in giving a response to a proposal of the President, I believe that a Court could find that there is no reason to withhold a unilateral appointment on the basis of the impossibility of agreement to a reasonable proposal.
To be clear, as a person closely involved with the legal and judicial system of Guyana for nearly all of those twenty-five years, I am of the view that the persons acting as Chancellor and Chief Justice who have been proposed for appointment are entitled to be so appointed. I would happily tell that to any Leader of the Opposition, privately or publicly.
Is Justice Winston Anderson, President of the Caribbean Court of Justice, in such a different position from me in this instance? His aim was clearly the upholding of the rule of law by ensuring the security of tenure of the leading judicial office holders in Guyana. Chastened by the harsh attack on him, he has been made to feel he went too far and should have stuck to a speech, which would have been as ineffective as those of his predecessors.
The country is poorer for the absence of a substantive Chancellor and Chief Justice and it is something we should all lament. Indeed it was lamented on many occasions by the newspaper which Kiskadee Watch says is its predecessor and on whose lineage it trades.
Why should the President of the Caribbean Court of Justice not intervene? Why should right-thinking members of society think that is wrong? The wrong in this situation is the continued acting appointments of people who serve the country in its highest judicial offices.
Chancellor Carl Singh, Chancellor Yonette Cummings-Edwards and Chief Justice Ian Chang, all of whom served with distinction but were never confirmed in their positions, have now left office. Chief Justice Chang has died. How many more Guyanese must be placed in their position before the situation is resolved?
It is untenable and I thank President Anderson for trying harder than just writing a speech to resolve it.
Yours faithfully,
Kamal Ramkarran
Discussion