The Witness, the Court and the Line That Was Crossed

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 592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

The Witness, the Court and the Line That Was Crossed

OPINION BY: Hem Kumar October 2026

When Opposition Crosses Into Obstruction

There is a vital line between opposition advocacy and conduct that threatens the integrity of justice. An Opposition Leader has a right to investigate the State, expose questionable expenditure, challenge police conduct and demand answers where public resources appear to be misused. In a democracy, that is not merely permitted; it is required.

But the office of Leader of the Opposition is not a license to discard judgment, decorum or respect for the rule of law.

Mohamed has exposed matters that warranted public debate. But not every camera expedition amounts to accountability, and not every confrontation with law enforcement is persecution. Political leadership demands more than disruption. It demands discipline, responsibility and an understanding that an office created by the Constitution carries obligations as well as privileges.

A Leader of the Opposition must be a guardian of the public interest—not a participant in conduct that, if proven, could undermine the safety of witnesses and the integrity of the justice system.

A Line Has Been Crossed

Whatever competing explanation is ultimately offered by Azzrudin Mohamed, the Guyana Police Force, or the Government, one fact remains impossible to escape: the Leader of the Opposition is a party to an active extradition matter before the courts, while Senior Superintendent Prem Narine is a key witness still undergoing cross-examination in that same proceeding.

That reality alone demands restraint, judgment and an unflinching respect for the integrity of the justice system. Instead, Guyana has been presented with a spectacle that raises grave questions about intimidation, interference, public safety and the abuse of political office.

This is not ordinary opposition politics. It is not parliamentary scrutiny. It is not a routine investigation into public expenditure.

Advocacy Has a Legal Boundary

There is nothing improper about questioning how taxpayers’ money is spent. If the Leader of the Opposition believes a police officer is receiving excessive protection, he has every lawful avenue available to him: request information, demand accountability in Parliament, publish documentary evidence, file a formal complaint, seek judicial review, engage the media, or call upon independent oversight bodies.

That is how legitimate public advocacy is conducted.

But no serious democracy can accept that a litigant in a live matter may place himself at the private residence of a central witness late at night and then seek refuge behind the phrase “exposing corruption.” The issue is not whether questions about security arrangements can be raised. They can. The issue is whether the manner, timing, location and circumstances of this intervention crossed the line from political theatre into potential interference with a witness and an ongoing judicial process.

A witness who is still on the stand, still being cross-examined, and still central to proceedings involving the very person appearing at his residence is entitled to safety, peace and protection from any act reasonably capable of producing fear or pressure.

The Law Cannot Be Optional

The precise charges, if any, must be determined by a proper investigation and by the courts. But the incident plainly raises possible issues extending well beyond political controversy:

♦ Possible discharge of a firearm and unlawful possession of firearm or ammunition, subject to forensic evidence and the outcome of the police investigation.

♦ Possible intimidation, harassment, obstruction or interference with a witness in active court proceedings.

♦ Possible endangerment of the witness, his family, nearby residents and law-enforcement officers.

♦ Possible breaches of road, public-order and other criminal laws arising from the reported police pursuit and interception.

♦ Potential contempt-related concerns, depending on whether conduct was intended or reasonably likely to interfere with the administration of justice.

These are not trivial allegations, and they cannot be dissolved by a livestream, a Facebook post, or the now-familiar cry of “political persecution.”

If the firearm allegation is false, then it must be disproven transparently through video evidence, forensic testing, ballistic analysis, independent witnesses and a verifiable chain of custody. 

If it is true, the law must take its course without fear, favor, political calculation or selective enforcement.

Office Requires Decorum

The Leader of the Opposition is not merely another activist, commentator or social-media personality. It is a constitutional office. The holder is expected to act with seriousness, maturity and a clear understanding that his conduct sets a national example.

That office carries the responsibility to scrutinize Government. It does not confer authority to shadow witnesses, create confrontations around their homes, or behave in a manner that can reasonably be understood as coercive or threatening.

Political leaders cannot demand that citizens respect the courts while appearing to test the boundaries of judicial authority when the process turns against them. Nor can they claim to defend democracy while treating a key witness in their own legal matter as a target for late-night “investigation.”

This is where the distinction must be made without apology: opposition advocacy is not immunity from criminal accountability.

The Persecution Narrative Fails

Mohamed has repeatedly portrayed police attention, court proceedings and public scrutiny as evidence of political persecution. But an accusation of persecution cannot become a universal defense to every allegation, every arrest or every encounter with the law.

The extradition proceedings did not arise because he became Leader of the Opposition. The legal jeopardy preceded the political office. That chronology matters. 

It raises the unavoidable question of whether politics was embraced as a platform for public service—or as a shield from accountability.

The strategy has not worked because political office does not erase indictments, nullify court proceedings, silence witnesses or suspend the rule of law.

Guyana must resist the dangerous idea that anyone who cries persecution is automatically excused from answering legitimate questions about their own conduct. The law is not persecution when it is applied fairly. Investigation is not victimization when credible allegations arise. Due process is not oppression when the evidence is allowed to speak.

The Public Interest Demands Facts

This case must now be handled with exceptional care. The Police Force must provide a complete evidentiary account, not a public-relations version of events. The public should expect disclosure, where legally permissible, of CCTV footage, body-camera recordings, ballistic results, forensic findings, the firearm’s chain of custody, statements from all occupants of the vehicle and the basis for the security arrangements at Narine’s residence.

Equally, Mohamed and his legal representatives must be allowed to state their case, challenge evidence and receive every protection guaranteed by law. That is not weakness. That is the standard Guyana must insist upon.

But fairness does not require silence in the face of apparent danger. A justice system cannot function if witnesses believe that their homes can become sites of surveillance, confrontation or intimidation because they agreed to give evidence.

No One Is Above the Law

The real issue is not whether Government can be questioned. It must be questioned. The real issue is not whether police protection should be examined. It should be examined. 

The real issue is whether a constitutional officeholder may discard the boundaries that protect the court, its witnesses and the public whenever those boundaries become inconvenient.

The answer must be no.

The Leader of the Opposition has a choice: elevate the office through principled, evidence-based and lawful advocacy, or reduce it to a rolling spectacle of confrontation, provocation and disruption.

A democracy cannot survive if its institutions are treated as enemies merely because they demand accountability. And a justice system cannot function if witnesses are made to feel that testifying carries a personal price.

Whatever the final facts reveal, this incident must be investigated without compromise. If laws were breached, then charges must follow. If misconduct occurred, then consequences must be real.

The title Leader of the Opposition may command national attention. It must never place its holder above the law.

 

 

Calls for Confirmation Ignore the Judiciary’s Fundamental Problems

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 592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA 

Calls for Confirmation Ignore the Judiciary’s Fundamental Problems

POLITICS AND THE JUIDICARY BY: CHRISTHOPER  RAM –October 14, 2026 

The renewed calls for the substantive appointment of Guyana’s Chancellor and Chief Justice are understandable, given the prolonged reliance on acting appointments to fill the Judiciary’s two highest offices. While this constitutional impasse ought to be resolved, the concentration on confirmation overlooks more fundamental problems of judicial performance, management and accountability. Even if both acting officeholders were confirmed tomorrow, there is little reason to believe that such appointments, without accompanying reforms, would significantly improve the administration of justice.

Over recent years, the Judiciary has benefited from additional judges, improved facilities, electronic filing, virtual hearings and other modernization initiatives, while the Civil Procedure Rules introduced in 2017 were intended to improve the efficiency of civil litigation. These developments are welcome, but increased resources must ultimately be judged by results rather than by expenditure or the number of appointments.

The Judiciary’s own statistics raise disturbing questions. Page 30 of its 2023 Annual Report records that the Demerara Judicial Registry’s clearance rate for Statements of Claim fell from 54.8% in 2021 to 4.7% in 2023, while the rate for Fixed Date Applications declined from 88.3% in 2022 to 25.4% in 2023. In actual numbers, Statements of Claim concluded fell from 204 in 2021 to just 16 in 2023, while Fixed Date Applications concluded declined from 1,653 in 2022 to 486 in 2023.

The Court of Appeal presents an equally concerning picture, with page 26 of the same report recording 361 matters filed in 2023 but only 163 disposed of, representing a ratio of disposals to new filings of approximately 45%, compared with 76% in 2021. These are not allegations by dissatisfied litigants but figures published by the Judiciary itself, which require explanation and, where necessary, corrective action.

There may be explanations involving changes in reporting methodology, staffing or case classification, but the Judiciary should provide them, together with comparable information for 2024 and 2025. The public is also entitled to know the number and age of outstanding cases, the duration of reserved judgments and the measures being taken to reduce delays. Judicial independence protects judges against interference in deciding cases; it does not exempt the administration of the courts from scrutiny.

The temporary appointments of Justices Arif Bulkan and Rafeek Khan demonstrated the contribution that experienced and productive judges can make to reducing outstanding work, suggesting that the issue is not simply the number of judges but how effectively judicial resources are deployed.

The Judiciary enjoys constitutional financial and administrative autonomy under Articles 122A and 222A, including funding through a direct charge on the Consolidated Fund, while Article 223 requires the Auditor General to audit the accounts of all courts. Financial independence is essential, but it cannot become an exemption from accountability.

The Supreme Court’s 2022 Annual Report records approximately G$3.59 billion in funding and G$3.20 billion in expenditure, supported by financial schedules but without an identifiable accompanying independent audit opinion. The Auditor General’s 2024 Annual Report identifies completed audits of the Supreme Court’s financial statements for 2015, 2016 and 2017, without identifying corresponding audits for subsequent years. The obvious questions are whether later financial statements were prepared and audited, and where the resulting reports may be examined.

Reporting has also been delayed, with the 2022 Annual Report laid before the National Assembly in January 2024 and the 2023 report not laid until November 2025. Reports for 2024 and 2025 are not currently listed on the Judiciary’s website.

As an officer of the court, I regard judicial independence as indispensable, but the Judiciary cannot insist that other public authorities comply with the law and account for public funds while treating its own obligations as secondary. Having more money is no substitute for proper financial management.

Article 127 requires agreement between the President and the Leader of the Opposition for substantive appointments, but acting officeholders acquire no automatic entitlement to confirmation. Appointments to the Judiciary’s highest offices should follow a transparent, merit-based process assessing legal competence, integrity, experience, administrative ability, demonstrated leadership and a commitment to meaningful judicial reform, rather than treating incumbency as sufficient qualification.

The claims of other qualified candidates deserve consideration. Justice Deo Rishi Persaud was appointed to the High Court in 2004 and to the Court of Appeal in 2017, whereas the present acting Chief Justice, Navindra Singh, was appointed to the High Court in 2012 and to the Court of Appeal in 2025. These differences do not automatically determine who should be appointed, but they demonstrate why confirmation should not be treated as a foregone conclusion. Neither seniority nor incumbency should replace a proper assessment of merit.

The constitutional appointments impasse should certainly be resolved, but its resolution must not be mistaken for judicial reform. If the acting Chancellor and Chief Justice were confirmed tomorrow, outstanding cases would remain outstanding, reserved judgments would still require delivery, and the questions surrounding judicial performance and financial accountability would remain unanswered.

The fundamental problem is not the absence of substantive titles but the need for effective leadership, efficient judicial administration and meaningful accountability. Unless these deficiencies are addressed, confirmation is unlikely to produce any significant improvement in the delivery of justice.

 

A Final Verdict on Netanyahu?

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OPINION BY: Hem Kumar October 2026

October 7, Three Years On:  Will Israel’s Election  Test Netanyahu’s Political Survival

Three years after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks shattered Israel’s sense of security, Israelis are approaching an election that carries consequences far beyond the country’s borders.

On that day, Hamas militants killed more than 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals and abducted 251 people. It was a national trauma of historic magnitude: a devastating collapse of intelligence, deterrence, border security, and political judgment in a country long regarded as among the world’s most security-conscious states.

The catastrophe set off a war in Gaza whose human, political, and diplomatic consequences have reshaped the Middle East and profoundly damaged Israel’s standing across much of the world. Gaza has suffered mass killing, displacement, destruction of civilian infrastructure, hunger, disease, and a deepening humanitarian crisis.

Even under a ceasefire, civilians remain trapped in overcrowded displacement sites with inadequate water, sanitation, shelter, and medical care. The guns may be quieter than at the height of the war, but the suffering has not ended.

For Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the election expected later this month may be the closest thing to a public referendum on his leadership since the attacks. 

The voters will be asked, directly or indirectly, whether Israel’s longest-serving prime minister bears responsibility for the failures that made October 7 possible. They will also judge his government’s response: the scale and conduct of the Gaza war, the hostages crisis, the breakdown in Israel’s international relationships, the growth of internal polarization, and the risks created by an increasingly volatile confrontation with Iran.

A Failure That Cannot Be Explained Away

October 7 was not merely a military failure. It represented a profound failure of national leadership.

For years, Netanyahu presented himself as Israel’s indispensable guardian: the experienced statesman uniquely equipped to confront Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and the wider threats surrounding the country. His political brand was built on security. Yet under his watch, Hamas was able to prepare and execute the deadliest assault on Israeli civilians in the country’s history.

Serious questions remain about how Israel’s political and military establishment missed repeated warning signs, why defenses along the Gaza border were inadequate, and whether strategic decisions weakened Israel’s readiness. Netanyahu’s coalition had prioritized settlement expansion and West Bank security at a time when the threat from Gaza required clear-eyed vigilance. His government was also consumed by bitter internal conflict, particularly over judicial changes that triggered historic protests and raised concerns about the cohesion and readiness of the country’s reserve forces.

Recent reports alleging that regional leaders warned Netanyahu of a potential Hamas operation—claims he has strongly denied—add another layer to an already devastating record. Whether every allegation is ultimately substantiated or not, the larger fact is beyond dispute: October 7 happened on Netanyahu’s watch, after he had spent years telling Israelis that he was the leader best able to prevent exactly such a catastrophe.

No political messaging can erase that question from the ballot box.

Gaza and the Cost of Overreach

Israel had every right to defend its citizens, recover hostages, and pursue those responsible for the October 7  atrocities. Hamas committed an atrocity that deserved unequivocal condemnation.

But a state’s right to self-defense does not eliminate its obligations under international humanitarian law. Nor does it absolve leaders from weighing whether military tactics are advancing long-term national security or multiplying future threats.

In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, Israel received an extraordinary wave of sympathy from much of the world. That sympathy has since eroded dramatically, particularly as images and reports from Gaza documented immense civilian suffering and widespread destruction.

The comparison to the United States after September 11 is unavoidable. America was attacked, mourned, and initially supported by much of the international community. But its later wars, especially Iraq, carried enormous human costs, destabilized the region, weakened America’s moral standing, and left long-term consequences that still reverberate.

Israel faced a similar danger after October 7: that justified anger and legitimate self-defense could become an open-ended conflict with no viable political end state. Three years later, that danger appears painfully real. Gaza remains devastated. Hamas has not been replaced by a credible governing alternative. Palestinian civilian life has been shattered. Israel’s international isolation has deepened. And the conditions that fuel extremism have not disappeared.

A military campaign can destroy infrastructure and eliminate commanders. It cannot, on its own, create a durable political settlement.

The Global Fallout

The Gaza war has changed how Israel is viewed around the world. In many countries, public attitudes have shifted sharply against the Israeli government, especially among younger voters. Questions once confined to the margins of international debate—over occupation, settlements, Palestinian statehood, accountability, and alleged war crimes—now occupy mainstream political discourse.

This shift has brought serious and troubling consequences, including a documented rise in antisemitic attacks and harassment. Antisemitism is not an acceptable form of political dissent. Jewish people everywhere must not be held collectively responsible for decisions made by any Israeli government.,

At the same time, it is neither antisemitic nor illegitimate to scrutinize the conduct of the Israeli state, challenge its military policies, or demand accountability where credible evidence of violations exists. Treating every criticism of Israel as antisemitism blurs an essential distinction and weakens the fight against genuine anti-Jewish hatred.

That distinction matters now more than ever. Democratic societies must be able to oppose antisemitism unequivocally while also insisting that all governments, including Israel’s, comply with the law and protect civilian life.

Israel’s Verdict

Israelis will enter the voting booth carrying grief, anger, fear, and profoundly different visions of their country’s future.

For Netanyahu’s supporters, he remains an experienced leader confronting a hostile region, an emboldened Iran, and enemies committed to Israel’s destruction. They will argue that Israel cannot afford political instability at a time of war and regional uncertainty.

For his opponents, Netanyahu has become inseparable from the failures of October 7, the breakdown of public trust, the hostage crisis, the corrosive polarization of Israeli society, and the absence of a credible postwar strategy for Gaza. They will argue that Israel cannot rebuild security, national cohesion, or international credibility while refusing to confront the failures of the government that presided over the nation’s darkest day.

That is why this election matters.

It is not simply a contest between Likud and its centrist challengers, or between Benjamin Netanyahu and Gadi Eisenkot. It is a contest over whether Israel will hold its leaders accountable for a failure of historic proportions—and whether it can chart a path beyond permanent war, permanent insecurity, and permanent division.

The October 7 attacks changed Israel forever. The war that followed changed Gaza forever. It also transformed global politics, exposed the fragility of regional alliances, intensified international divisions, and deepened a humanitarian tragedy whose consequences will endure for generations.

At the polls, Israelis will have their opportunity to render a judgment. The question is whether that judgment will produce accountability—or merely another stalemate in a country still struggling to decide what kind of future it wants after October 7.


The Democratic Illusion: Guyana’s Unfinished Struggle

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592 GUARDIAN♦ ACCOUNTABILITY♦ INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦ GUYANA

The Democratic Illusion: Guyana’s Unfinished Struggle

Jagan as OL , Burnham as PM and D’aguiar as Finance Min.

OPINION BY : Hem Kumar October 2026  

History has a cruel way of repeating itself—not always in identical form, but through recurring episodes of exclusion, unequal power, official indifference, and a public increasingly asked to accept less than it deserves. Across the world, citizens are watching institutions hollowed out while a small political and economic directorate consolidates influence. Guyana is not immune to this pattern. In many respects, we have seen it before.

Our forebears fought courageously for independence, believing political self-rule would create the foundation for dignity, justice, and broad-based national development. Yet independence did not automatically transfer real power to the people. Too often, authority merely changed hands, while the structures that concentrated privilege, controlled opportunity, and silenced dissent remained intact.

Protest action in Buxton

Then came the long struggle to restore democratic elections. The return to free and fair polls in 1992 was a defining national moment. It represented an emphatic rejection of electoral fraud and authoritarian rule. Guyanese believed, reasonably, that the restoration of the vote would also restore accountable government, equal citizenship, independent institutions, and a meaningful say in the direction of the country.

But democracy cannot be reduced to the act of casting a ballot every five years.

For too many Guyanese, the promise of 1992 has become a democratic illusion: celebrated by political elites and their loyal networks, while ordinary citizens remain on the outside looking in. They confront rising living costs, insecure work, weak public services, uneven development, poor infrastructure, and a persistent sense that the country’s great decisions are made elsewhere—behind closed doors, beyond public scrutiny, and without meaningful consent.

This contradiction is especially glaring in an oil-rich Guyana. Never has the country possessed such extraordinary potential wealth, yet never has the question of who truly benefits been more urgent. Citizens are told to be patient while public resources are committed, contracts are negotiated, lands are allocated, and national priorities are set with insufficient transparency. They are expected to applaud impressive growth figures even where that growth does not translate into affordable food, quality health care, reliable water, safe roads, decent housing, or real economic security.

A country is not democratic simply because it holds elections. It is democratic when citizens can access information, challenge decisions without fear, organize freely, demand accountability, and see public institutions act in the public interest rather than in service of political convenience or private influence.

The uncomfortable truth is that Guyana has not yet experienced the broad, sustained coming together of its people around a common democratic demand: that the nation’s wealth, laws, institutions, and future must not be controlled by any narrow power directorate.

Ethnic insecurity, partisan dependency, economic vulnerability, and years of political conditioning have made collective action difficult. These divisions have repeatedly protected the status quo.

Yet the conditions that divide Guyanese should not obscure the conditions that unite them. Whether one lives in Georgetown, Linden, Berbice, Essequibo, the Rupununi, or a riverain community, the essential questions are the same: Who controls the national patrimony? Who benefits from public spending? Who is held accountable when institutions fail? Why should a resource-rich nation still leave so many of its people struggling for basic security and dignity?

The country does not need reckless confrontation. It needs organized citizenship.

A modern Guyanese civic movement should be multiethnic, nonviolent, evidence-based and independent of control by any political party. It should set practical demands that are difficult to evade or distort.

The demand should not be “remove one person and replace them with another.” Guyana has seen enough politics built around personalities.

The demand must be: build institutions that cannot be casually captured, ignored or manipulated by anyone.

A population that remains silent while decisions are made in its name will eventually be told that silence amounted to consent.

Guyanese should not wait until the oil has been pumped, the contracts have expired, the forests have been damaged, the money has been spent and the opportunities have been distributed among the already connected. By then, outrage will be historically accurate but politically late.

The next democratic advance will not come merely from another election cycle or another round of promises. It must come from organized citizens—workers, farmers, professionals, small-business owners, young people, communities, civil-society bodies, and independent voices—insisting that democracy mean more than periodic voting and partisan celebration.

Guyana’s future will not be secured merely by producing more oil, announcing more projects or celebrating larger national budgets. It will be secured when ordinary citizens recognize that democracy does not operate only on election day.

It operates whenever people refuse to be spectators in decisions that determine their lives, their children’s future and the national inheritance.

The question is not whether Guyanese have reasons to speak. The question is whether they will organize early enough, broadly enough and bravely enough to be heard.

Our forebears fought for independence. A later generation fought to reclaim the ballot. This generation must fight to make democracy real: participatory, transparent, equitable, and answerable to the people.

Until then, Guyana may continue to celebrate democracy in ceremony and slogan, while too many Guyanese continue searching for it in their daily lives.

 

Guy Dev Bk board -a gathering of heroes

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592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

Guy Dev Bk board -a gathering of heroes

OPINION BY : GHK LALL October 2026

Just as I suspected.  A Guyana Development Bank board of directors that fits the PPP mold perfectly.  Some names that ring a certain way.  Some faces from barren places.  A dash of color.  People in whom the party, the government, have confidence that they could see a cow, put a bell on it, and call it a crocodile.  A board that looks out for the interests of the government first, so I think.  A board not so dumb as to oversee the blatant, and not put a word or two in the minutes to attest to their pretense at independence, their commitment to the Guyanese people.

One from the commercial sector, another from another department of commerce.  Does have a touch of the sleek.  Who could have objection to these luminaries who know how money turns over, and how to turn it into other things?  I don’t.  For the record, I have had interaction with one of those stalwarts.  Not a bad one, not an inspiring one.  Guvment service is radically different from private enterprise.  May all Guyanese, especially prospective borrowers, remember that little morsel of wisdom. 

What to make of another who changed from a man for the people, to a man for the purse?  Public purse. 

To date, he hasn’t lived up to his weight, other than a willingness to take on double duty and deal with those who upset and unnerve Drs. Ali and Jagdeo.  To that I may have to add, Dr. Singh another sharp ringmaster in this Guyana bank circus. 

When there is a zeal for jobs that the fairer in the party shrink from doing, then I ponder how this thoughtful, innovative, and likely rewarding GDB will turn out.  Rewarding for whom is the puzzle that is now being assembled.  The management team will give the first clues.

Along the same lines, there is another GDB director who is growing in visibility, also due to past willingness to be a witch.  A deformed witch hunter to be exact.  I know, take that from me.  Get a load of that!  A witch hunter now reengineered as a bank director. When a citizen is prepared to contort and distort self, then it is an open question about how much twisting may be in store at the GDB.  I must confess to being awed by the PPP Govt skillfulness in compiling this board.  There are those from the private and public sectors.  There is gender spread (to be interpreted in the most proper terms). 

There is the Guyana rainbow, though cloudy at the edges.  A bit too shaded for me.  There’s politics and the potential for tricks.  Notwithstanding the commercials about a friendly neighborhood bank that welcomes the impoverished, the lickerish, and those who represent nothing but political gibberish.

The invitation is public.  Identify for me, please, the one instance, the one team, that made these political contraptions (banks that work as box-hands, but with a difference: no hand deposited) stand on their own.  Then deliver to the people who could truly benefit from a straight talking, straight producing development bank.  It’s the old story of Guyana: great potential, great regret.  There’s the Wales gas-to-something, that has ended up being nothing, so far.  There’s the great story of ‘review and renegotiate’ all contracts, only for hole to be found, and a house built on it (sanctity of contract).  Whoever is willing to trust those still promising to be faithful to their commitments, that is their luxury, their right.

The GDB, like those mentioned, has potential.  But, when PPP loyalists-new and old, fair and foul, stealth operators or guerilla fighters-stand guard over that bank, Guyanese are in for a ride.  For their sakes, I trust that their seatbelts will hold.  They could be in for a rough time.  Lots of money and lots of love (in contrast to the late Mighty Sparrow’s experience).  The story about to be developed is to determine who gets the hog of it.

 

PART II: THE GUYANA TEST  Can Georgetown Prove Its Gold Is Guyanese?

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592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA 

PART II: THE GUYANA TEST  Can Georgetown Prove Its Gold Is Guyanese?

OPINION BY:  Hem Kumar October 2026

The problem with illicit gold is not that it is difficult to move. The problem is that, once it has been melted, mixed, bought and exported, it can become almost impossible to distinguish from lawful production.

That is the lesson emerging from the Venezuelan gold now reportedly stranded in the United States. The metal arrived through a high-profile commercial arrangement involving a global commodities trader and Venezuela’s state mining company. Yet U.S. refiners have reportedly hesitated because they cannot satisfy themselves that the gold is unconnected to criminal taxation, corruption, illegal extraction or environmental abuse.

Guyana should pay attention—not because its mining industry is identical to Venezuela’s, but because the test now being applied to Venezuelan gold is the test every gold-exporting country will eventually face. 

♦ Can you prove where the gold came from?

♦ Can you prove who handled it?

♦ Can you prove who was paid?

♦ Can you prove that the metal entering the export chain is the same metal that left a legal mine?

If Guyana cannot answer those questions with records rather than assurances, then its gold sector remains exposed to the same regional laundering economy described in “The Cuyuní Machine.”

 Gold Is Not Self-Identifying

Gold has no nationality once it is melted. A gold bar may bear a refinery stamp, a weight and a purity mark. It may have an export declaration, an invoice and a buyer’s name. None of that, by itself, proves where the gold was mined.

The proof must come before the melting. It must begin at the mine site, with a credible production record tied to a licensed concession. It must continue through the buyer, the transport route, the assay, the export permit, the payment, the bank transaction and the final foreign purchaser.

Every gap in that chain is an opportunity. A miner can declare more gold than a claim could reasonably produce. A dealer can aggregate metal from multiple sources without preserving reliable source records. A shipment can be described as local production after foreign gold is mixed into a lawful batch. A payment can be settled in cash, through a proxy, or through a digital-asset arrangement that obscures the true buyer and beneficial owner.

By the time the gold is exported, the paper trail may look respectable. That is precisely the point of laundering.

The Origin-Laundering Risk

The danger to Guyana is not limited to a dramatic image of smugglers crossing the Cuyuní with sacks of gold. The more serious risk is administrative.

Foreign gold can be brought into Guyana in small amounts through remote crossings, river landings, interior transport routes or unmonitored airstrips. It can be sold into local buying channels. It can be aggregated with Guyanese gold. It can then appear in the system as inventory acquired from miners, traders or licensed suppliers.

Once the material has been pooled, the original source is harder to isolate.

This is why an export certificate is only as credible as the records beneath it. If the underlying dealer records are weak, if production figures cannot be reconciled, if payments are not traceable, or if regulators cannot independently test whether a declared source could produce the volume attributed to it, the certificate may describe a transaction without proving origin.

Guyana has an additional reason for concern.

Regional reporting has identified changing gold flows in which Guyanese gold is reportedly being diverted toward Venezuela by buyers able to offer premiums above the legal market price. That creates an illicit incentive system on both sides of the frontier: Venezuelan gold may seek Guyanese identity, while Guyanese gold may seek Venezuelan prices.

That is not a one-way smuggling story. It is a regional market built on arbitrage, opacity and weak enforcement.

The Records That Matter

Guyana’s authorities should be able to demonstrate, in real time, a complete and auditable record for exported gold.

At minimum, the system should answer five questions for every shipment:

1.Mine source: Which licensed claim or operation produced the gold?

2.Production capacity: Could that operation reasonably have produced the volume declared?

3.Custody: Who possessed the gold from mine to buyer, buyer to assayer, and assayer to exporter?

4.Payment: Who paid for it, by what method, and through which financial institution?

5.Export: Which entity exported it, to whom, through which refinery or purchaser, and under what responsible-sourcing standard?

A country that cannot answer those questions is not operating a full traceability system. It is operating a paperwork system.

There is a difference.

Paperwork records what someone says happened. Traceability allows regulators, banks, auditors and foreign buyers to test whether it could have happened.

The Pressure Points

The Guyanese gold chain has several points where laundering risks can arise.

♦ Production declarations: Regulators must compare a mine’s stated output against geology, equipment, workforce, operating history, recovery rates and prior production.

♦ Licensed purchases: Buyers should be able to identify the source of each acquisition, not merely produce a general ledger at the end of the month.

♦ Aggregation: When gold from multiple miners is pooled, the underlying source records must remain linked to the final batch.

♦ Assaying and refining:Assay results establish purity; they do not establish legality or origin. That distinction must be understood.

♦ Payments: Large cash transactions, third-party payments, unexplained  premiums and settlement through opaque intermediaries should trigger scrutiny.

♦Transport: Gold moving from interior regions must have a documented route, responsible carrier and lawful destination.   

♦ Export reconciliation: The quantity exported must be capable of being traced back to lawful production and licensed purchases.

♦ Beneficial ownership: Authorities must know who ultimately owns the dealer, exporter, buyer and any company receiving the proceeds.

The system is only as strong as its weakest point. An exporter can comply perfectly at the airport while still exporting gold whose history was lost weeks earlier at an interior buying point.

Georgetown’s Burden of Proof

The Government of Guyana has repeatedly acknowledged the threat of cross-border gold smuggling. It has also said that significant resources are being committed to confront it. Those claims should now be tested against public evidence.

The country does not need to reveal sensitive operational details or compromise ongoing investigations. But it can publish basic accountability 

♦ Gold-smuggling seizures by year, district and route.

♦Arrests, charges, prosecutions and convictions.

♦ Suspensions or cancellations of mining, dealer or export licenses.

♦ Inspections conducted at mines, buying houses, airstrips, river landings and border corridors.

♦ Export volumes reconciled against declared production.

♦ Suspicious-transaction reports involving gold purchases, export proceeds, cash conversion or digital-asset transactions.

♦ Referrals between mining regulators, Customs, police, the Financial Intelligence Unit and the Guyana Revenue Authority.

♦ Requests for intelligence-sharing and the results of joint work with Brazil, Suriname, the United States and other regional partners.

Without that information, Guyanese citizens are asked to accept assurances at the very moment the regional gold trade is becoming more opaque and more dangerous.

The Cost of Failing

The immediate loss from illicit gold is obvious: unpaid taxes, stolen royalties and revenue diverted from public services.The larger cost is reputational.

International bullion markets operate on trust. Refiners, banks, insurers and commodity traders must satisfy responsible-sourcing rules and anti-money-laundering obligations. Once a jurisdiction becomes associated with questionable gold, every exporter from that jurisdiction can face more scrutiny, longer delays, higher compliance costs and reduced access to reputable buyers.

That is why Guyana should not wait for a foreign refiner to reject a shipment before it acts. The country should build the evidence chain before the gold leaves its borders.

The ultimate measure is not whether Guyana exports gold. It is whether Guyana can prove that the gold it exports belongs in a lawful international market.

Parliament Is Not a Podcast

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592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

   Parliament Is Not a Podcast

OPINION BY : Hem Kumar October 2026

Nandlall’s call for substantive opposition engagement is undermined by the Government’s own failure to keep Parliament functioning as the principal arena for national debate. 

Attorney General Anil Nandlall, SC, has delivered a lecture to the Opposition on its democratic duties. He says it must rise above allegations of corruption, local complaints and political exchanges; that it must offer constructive criticism, policy guidance and a credible alternative vision for Guyana.

On its face, that proposition is beyond dispute.

Guyana needs serious debate about the cost of living, Venezuela’s continuing threat to our territorial integrity, climate change, food security, public debt, oil wealth, infrastructure priorities and the long-term shape of the economy. The Opposition, whether large or small, has a responsibility to scrutinize the Government, propose alternatives and demonstrate that it is capable of governing.

 But the Attorney General’s sermon collapses under the weight of the Government’s own conduct.

How can the Opposition perform the role he now demands when the very institution designed for that role—the National Assembly—has been treated as an occasional convenience of the Executive? How can a parliamentary opposition be expected to conduct sustained policy scrutiny when Parliament is summoned only intermittently, and principally when the Government has legislation, spending or other business it considers necessary to process?

The country cannot be told, with a straight face, that the Opposition must elevate national discourse while Parliament—the constitutional forum for national discourse—is left dormant.

The learned Attorney General appears to want the Opposition to discuss the country’s most serious concerns in the “open spaces”: through podcasts, press conferences, Facebook posts and public exchanges. But Guyana did not establish a Parliament, elect Members of the National Assembly, appoint a Speaker and sustain a parliamentary administration at public expense merely to turn public policy into a social-media contest.

A podcast is not Parliament. A Facebook Live is not Parliament. A press release is not Parliament.

 The National Assembly is where ministers are answerable, where questions may be asked on the public record, where documents can be demanded, where laws are examined, where budgets are scrutinized, where motions are debated and where the Government must confront—not evade—the representatives of the people.

That is why the low number of sittings is so deeply troubling. Four sittings over thirteen months is not an active legislative program. It is not a serious commitment to democratic scrutiny. It is certainly not a convincing foundation on which the Government can demand that the Opposition provide rigorous, sustained and policy-driven engagement on every major challenge confronting the country.

If the Attorney General believes the Opposition has been silent on Venezuela, then why has the Government not brought the issue before Parliament for a comprehensive national debate?  Why was the LOO not briefed by the learned, ever-expressive AG.  Venezuela’s posture is not a side issue. It is perhaps the most grave and enduring national-security challenge facing Guyana. It demands more than ministerial statements, selective briefings and political criticism.

It demands a mature, transparent and regular parliamentary engagement that gives Guyanese confidence that their elected representatives are united, informed and prepared.

If the Government wants a serious discussion about the cost of living, let it bring the matter to the House. Let ministers explain why prices remain punishing for ordinary families despite the country’s unprecedented oil revenues. Let the Opposition table its proposals. Let Government defend its policies. Let the country hear the arguments and judge the competing prescriptions.

If food security is a central regional responsibility, let Parliament examine the plans, targets, funding, land-access arrangements, drainage and irrigation systems, logistics and markets required to meet that responsibility. If climate change and sea-level rise are existential concerns, let the Government submit its adaptation strategy, financing plans and coastal-defense priorities to the scrutiny of the people’s representatives.

 And if Guyana is navigating the tension between fossil-fuel expansion and environmental responsibility, Parliament must not be reduced to an afterthought. The management of petroleum wealth, the terms of major agreements, the use of the Natural Resource Fund, local-content compliance, gas-to-energy expenditures and the country’s environmental safeguards deserve frequent and searching examination.

These are not matters to be left to carefully curated media appearances.

Nor should the Government be permitted to use the language of “constructive criticism” as a code for an Opposition that criticizes only on terms acceptable to the Government. Constructive criticism does not mean timid criticism. It does not mean that the Opposition must first secure ministerial approval before exposing failures, waste, secrecy, conflicts of interest or abuse of power.

A healthy opposition must be free to investigate, accuse, challenge and demand answers. It must pursue corruption allegations where evidence warrants them. It must question projects, procurement, land allocations, public spending, contracts and local failures, because those failures affect real people and real communities. Roads, farms, fences, drainage, pumps and other local concerns may appear to be “minutiae” to those in high office, but they are not minor to the farmer whose crop is destroyed, the household whose property floods or the community left without essential services.

The Attorney General should know that accountability does not become trivial merely because it is grounded in the daily hardship of citizens.

Still, he is right on one point: Guyana needs a higher quality of policy debate. But that debate must take place first and foremost where the Constitution intended it to take place—in Parliament.

The Government cannot shutter or marginalize the nation’s principal deliberative chamber, then rebuke the Opposition for seeking alternative public spaces in which to be heard. It cannot restrict opportunities for formal scrutiny and then complain when the national conversation moves to the media, public meetings and social platforms. It cannot weaken parliamentary culture and then feign disappointment at the quality of political discourse outside Parliament.

That is not statesmanship. It is convenience masquerading as concern for democracy.

The direct question to Mr. Nandlall is therefore unavoidable:where exactly does he expect the Opposition to make the substantive contributions he says it has failed to make?

Is it on social media? Is it on a podcast? Is it in press statements? Is it at public meetings? Or is it in the National Assembly, where the Government and Opposition can meet openly, regularly and under the scrutiny of the people?

If the Attorney General’s answer is that these matters belong in Parliament, then the remedy lies largely with his own Government. Convene the House regularly. Permit meaningful debates. Provide sufficient time for questions and motions. Make ministers answerable. Facilitate parliamentary committees. Treat the Opposition as an elected institution, not an inconvenience to be managed.

And if Parliament is to remain largely idle while public affairs are debated in open spaces, then taxpayers are entitled to ask why they are carrying the expense of a parliamentary establishment that is not being allowed to fulfil its central constitutional purpose. The public purse is already under pressure. Pensioners are still compelled to fight for benefits they say are legally due to them. Families continue to confront high food prices and rising living costs. In that context, every dollar spent on underused democratic institutions demands explanation.

 Guyana does not need an Opposition invited to perform democracy on social media. It needs a Parliament that works.

Mr. Nandlall cannot credibly demand an effective opposition while accepting an ineffective parliamentary calendar. The Government cannot call for policy guidance while withholding the principal platform for policy debate. And no amount of eloquence on a podcast can substitute for a living, active and accountable National Assembly.

The Opposition must improve where it has failed. But the Government must first stop denying it the forum in which an opposition is constitutionally meant to function.

Silence Is Violence: Domestic Abuse Cannot Be Ignored at Home

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592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

 Silence Is Violence: Domestic Abuse Cannot Be Ignored at Home

OPINION BY : Hem Kumar October 2026

Women are battered in homes, silenced by fear and often failed by systems meant to protect them. Digital violence deserves urgent attention, but it cannot become a convenient, globally fashionable subject through which officials avoid confronting the violence occurring closer to home.

If  minister  Vindhya Persaud believes that women should not be forced to retreat from public life because of online abuse, then she must also speak clearly when women face violence, coercion, intimidation or injustice within their homes and communities. Domestic violence does not become less serious because it is not trending online or being debated before an international audience.

There is a troubling pattern in which public officials find strong language for foreign forums but offer limited public engagement when difficult cases arise locally—especially where political sensitivities, influential persons or uncomfortable associations may be involved. That disparity undermines confidence in the sincerity of official commitments.

Guyana does not need international applause for laws on paper alone. It needs transparent enforcement, prompt police action, accessible shelters, dependable psychosocial support, public reporting on outcomes and a government willing to speak consistently for victims—regardless of who is implicated.

Guyana’s call for stronger international action against digital violence targeting women is welcome. The threat is real: online harassment, manipulated sexual images, anonymous abuse and coordinated attacks can intimidate women, damage reputations and drive them from public life.

But speeches on international platforms must be matched by courage and consistency at home.

October is observed as Domestic Violence Awareness Month—a time intended not for ceremonial statements or convenient displays of concern, but for honest national reflection and meaningful action.

It is therefore difficult to reconcile the Government of Guyana’s strong international messaging on violence against women with the conspicuous silence that can greet serious cases of domestic abuse at home. At the 153rd Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Tanzania, Minister of Human Services and Social Security Dr Vindhya Persaud rightly called for stronger international accountability for digital violence against women. She warned about online harassment, manipulated sexual images, artificial intelligence-generated abuse and attacks intended to frighten women out of public life.

These are urgent concerns. Digital violence is violence. It can humiliate, isolate, damage livelihoods and restrict a woman’s freedom to participate fully in society.

But domestic violence is also violence—often immediate, physical, repeated and potentially fatal. Women across Guyana continue to endure beatings, threats, coercive control, sexual abuse, financial deprivation and psychological torment behind closed doors. For too many, the home is not a refuge. It is where the danger lives.

The public is entitled to ask why an official entrusted with the Human Services and Social Security portfolio, including responsibility for responding to domestic violence, appears more willing to speak forcefully on international platforms than to publicly engage difficult local cases.

The Seeram matter—already adjudicated by the courts—has raised questions and generated public concern. Yet there has been no comparable visible intervention, reassurance or sustained public advocacy from the ministerial office responsible for supporting survivors of abuse.

This is not an argument against addressing digital violence. It is an argument against selective outrage.

A government cannot credibly urge the world to protect women online while appearing reluctant to confront violence against women in their homes, communities and intimate relationships. Nor can it claim leadership on gender justice while public silence is allowed to create the impression that political connections, workplace loyalties or social standing influence who receives official attention.

Every victim deserves to know that the system will respond without fear or favor. Every woman deserves to believe that her safety matters whether her abuse is recorded on a phone, spread through social media, hidden behind a bedroom door or brought before a court.

The laws cited by Minister Persaud—including the Family Violence Act 2024 and cybercrime legislation—must be more than achievements recited at global meetings. Their worth must be measured in real-world protection: police officers who act promptly, protection orders that are accessible and enforced, shelters with adequate capacity, reliable legal assistance, trauma-informed counselling and public institutions willing to speak when silence could further endanger victims.

October must not become another month of slogans, purple ribbons and carefully prepared speeches. It must be a reminder that domestic violence is a national emergency requiring consistency, compassion and courage.

Silence is not neutrality. Silence can shield abusers, isolate survivors and weaken public trust. Silence, in the face of domestic violence, is violence.

Guyana’s leaders must stop treating advocacy for women’s safety as an issue best delivered abroad. The strongest message they can send the world is not another speech in an international forum. It is the willingness to stand publicly, firmly and consistently with women facing violence here at home.

Daniel Seeram: there’s Mistah Nandlall’s law

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592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

Daniel Seeram: there’s Mistah Nandlall’s law

OPINION BY: GHK LALL October 2026

On the next occasion that Guyana’s Hon Attorney General, Mohabir Anil Nandlall, SC, MP, OE, CCH, opens his book of wisdom and expounds on the rule of law and respect for the law (and of laws, not men), I have a humble addition for inclusion in his encyclopedia. 

There is Daniel Seeram.  He deserves not a page, but a whole volume by himself.

Whenever mischievous spirits enter the head of Guyana’s Pres Ali and inspires him to utterances about untainted governance and immaculate leadership, I found a spirit of my own to give to him.  There is Mr. Daniel Seeram.  He stands as the poster boy of clean governance and credible leadership.

Then, there is Guyana’s man of steel and might, Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo, who recently had his incantation about breaches of the law and the consequences that could follow, I have some kind words for him.  There is Professor Daniel Seeram.  A man now authorized to travel local lecture circuits and give Guyanese law symposia.

The next time that Guyana’s Hon Prime Minister, former man of war, Ret’d General Mark Phillips, decides to provide a public exhibition of his love for music at high volume (noise) I have something for him.  There is Music Master and Noisemaker Hep Cat Daniel Seeram.  His label is an impressive one: PPP Productions.  It may not be Motown, but Georgetown is as good as any backstreet in Detroit that once awarded itself the title of Hitsville, USA.

Last but not least on the political side, there is the Hon Minister of God and Glorious Guyana Works, Cardinal General, Juan Edghill.  For a man who doesn’t deal in antichrists, I have a prayer and a hymn for him.  Ah shucks, the divinely haloed Cardinal Edghill already guessed the name.  There is Daniel Seeram.  A man who has his own gods, may even fancy himself to be a god, too.

For the time being, Guyana’s Hon Minister of Policing, Oneidge Waldron, is given the caring and compassionate treatment, for she just came out of a thunderstorm, all wet and soggy.  She has SOCU on her hands, so it would be unconscionable to place Daniel Seeram on her plate.

Now, it’s time to insert the foreign dimension into this conversation.  There’s the illustrious U.S. Ambassador to Guyana, Excellency Nicole D. Theriot and that other American who has achieved his own strain of Guyanese immortality, Mr. Alistair Routledge.  When they wax profusely and elegantly about democracy’s sparkle and the grandeur of PPP governance in Guyana, there’s that man to set right ambassador and conquistador.  Daniel Seeram is the name, and freedom is his game.  I should pause, but I can’t leave out Exxon’s Sam Houston.  There’s CEO, Darren Woods, a man given to excesses of dribbling platitudes about the quality of leadership and governance in Guyana when Pres Ali puts that bearhug on his elbow.  There’s the irrepressible and uncatchable Daniel Seeram.  My Lord, my God!  This feels like Mexico and the Alamo again.

One verdict.  One penalty.  One man.  Mr. Nandlall, where’s this law of which so much is spoken, counsel?  Mr. Jagdeo, what about the consequences that slipped past the lips, doc?  General Phillips, what about a little noise, sir?  Deacon Edghill, how about a cry to heaven for the wretched of Guyana, Lordship?  I deal with the people that matter.  Guyanese can figure out why another was bypassed.  I help: what’s the use of dealing with showbiz and Entertainment Everyday when serious stuff is on the agenda?

My last word on this grand affair is this.  If Mr. Daniel Seeram still wore his PNC stripes, already he would have been tossed headfirst into a small unlit cell.  Then, chained hand and foot, with an iron bracelet strapped tightly across his waist, and all while fastened to a wall. 

Perhaps, Anil Nandlall, SC, may be interested in telling Guyanese more about that, and his laws, courts, holdings, and to whom they apply (and don’t).

 

“Not Running a Democracy”: Anderson Makes Good on His Own Word

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592GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

 “Not Running a Democracy”: Anderson Makes Good on His Own Word

OPINION BY: Hem Kumar October 2026

Three weeks after calling panel-fixing allegations malevolent and promising reform, CCJ President Winston Anderson sat in on the interrogation of a judge’s administrative officer, invoked a two-year prison statute, and left Justice Peter Jamadar describing himself as targeted, harassed and bullied. The pattern is no longer deniable. The only open question is what to call it.

On August 14, 2026, CCJ President Justice Winston Anderson issued a nine-page statement rejecting allegations that he had manipulated panel composition to influence case outcomes. He called the suggestion “irresponsible, intellectually dishonest, injudicious and quite simply, malevolent.” He announced a structural remedy — every judge would henceforth sit on every panel unless excused for legitimate reason — and gave no sign he intended to resign.

Three weeks later, according to a six-page e-mail Justice Peter Jamadar sent on September 4, 2026 to Anderson, the Regional Judicial and Legal Services Commission, fellow judges and court staff, Anderson was personally present while Jamadar’s own administrative officer, Candace Simmons-Peters, was questioned about her printing records, her work hours, her communications with Jamadar, and documents connected to an RJLSC-facilitated intervention. She was required to surrender her CCJ computer for examination. And, Jamadar alleges, Anderson referenced the possibility of a two-year prison sentence under Trinidad and Tobago’s Computer Misuse Act.

This is not a continuation of the dress-code dispute. It is a different and more serious category of conduct, and it deserves to be named as such: a sitting president of the region’s apex court, already under formal allegation of panel-fixing from a majority of his own bench, using an internal leak investigation to question a judge’s staff about that judge’s private and professional activities — with a criminal statute invoked in the room.

WHAT ANDERSON PROMISED, WHAT ANDERSON DID

Anderson’s own August 14 statement is now the measure against which his September conduct must be read. He did not merely deny panel-fixing — he characterized the very inference as malevolent, staking his credibility on there being no pattern of unilateral overreach beneath the dress-code dispute. He proposed a fix explicitly designed to remove his own discretion over panel composition going forward.

Nothing in that statement reserved him a role in personally investigating a sitting judge’s staff, examining their computer, or sitting in on a conversation in which a criminal prison term was raised. If the August remedy was sincere, the September conduct is very difficult to square with it. If it was not, the remedy was theatre — a controlled concession on the issue already public, offered to forestall scrutiny of what remained private.

THREE INCIDENTS, ONE PATTERN — IN JAMADAR’S OWN WORDS

Jamadar’s complaint does not rest on the Simmons-Peters episode alone. He lays out three incidents he says cannot be viewed in isolation: a judges’ meeting where Anderson’s stance shifted from inviting in-person attendance to expecting it; the questioning of his administrative officer; and an earlier August meeting where Anderson told him that non-attendance might give Anderson “a reason to write to you” — language Jamadar calls “shocking.” He notes that fellow judge Maureen Rajnauth-Lee received a similarly pointed e-mail, while three other judges who made the same postponement request did not.

“Certainly, I feel targeted, harassed, and bullied (directly or indirectly) by their occurrence, and their proximity to the wider contexts that are related to the broader and unresolved impasse among the judges and the CCJ President.”

Selective treatment of judges who raised the same objection, on the same point, is itself a data point. Of five judges who sought to postpone an August meeting, two — Jamadar and Rajnauth-Lee — received pointed follow-up from Anderson. The other three did not. Jamadar and Rajnauth-Lee are, notably, two of the five judges on record from the original leaked correspondence raising concerns about Anderson’s leadership. The selection is not random on its face, and Anderson’s own August statement offers no account of it, because the question had not yet been asked.

THE STRUCTURAL OBJECTION JAMADAR RAISES HIMSELF

Jamadar’s complaint identifies the same institutional defect already flagged in this publication’s prior coverage of Ralph Ramkarran’s defense of Anderson: Anderson chairs the RJLSC, the body with nominal authority to review conduct at the court, and he is also the central figure in the underlying dispute. Jamadar asks directly whether Anderson should play any role in investigating judges or staff when he is himself closely involved in the matter under investigation — and whether the RJLSC even knew of, approved, or supported the inquiry being conducted in its name.

No answer has been provided. The Sunday Express sent questions to Anderson, the court’s communications department and the RJLSC on September 30, resent them October 5, and received nothing by press time. That is the same silence this publication has tracked through the August 14 statement, the Aug 13 joint Heads of Judiciary statement, and the unanswered fifteen questions over D’Almada. An institution capable of a nine-page rebuttal when the allegation is public has had five weeks to answer six questions put to it privately, and has chosen not to.

RETRIBUTION, OR SOMETHING THE COURT SHOULD STILL BE ASKED TO RULE OUT

Is this retribution? The honest answer is that the record, as it stands, supports the inference without yet proving it. Jamadar was one of five judges whose concerns about Anderson’s leadership became public in August. He is now one of two judges, out of five who made an identical request, singled out for a pointed response from Anderson. His administrative officer was questioned in the course of a leak investigation about material — an RJLSC-facilitated intervention file — that Jamadar says has no logical connection to the alleged disclosure to the press. And the questioning of that officer escalated to a reference to criminal prison time.

None of that proves Jamadar was the Sunday Express’s source, and this publication is not asserting that he was — nor does Jamadar’s own e-mail make that claim about himself. What the record does show is a president who, having been accused of punishing a judge over a point of disagreement once already, is now the central figure in an investigation that a second judge experienced as punitive, run through that judge’s own staff, with a criminal statute invoked as leverage.

Whether Jamadar leaked the correspondence is a question only the investigation he is now objecting to could answer honestly — which is precisely why it should not be Anderson conducting it.

Anderson told his colleagues in July 2025 that he did not see himself as “running a democracy.” In May 2026, he overrode a colleague on a point of law rather than let it be aired collegially in Barrow v Caricom. In June, he removed Eboe-Osuji from a panel over a disagreement he later insisted was purely about attire — a claim the Robateau timeline does not support. In August, he denied all of it in the strongest possible terms and promised reform. In September, by his own administrative officer’s apparent experience and Jamadar’s sworn account, he personally oversaw an inquiry into a sitting judge’s private affairs with a prison sentence on the table.

Each incident, taken alone, might be explained away. Taken together, across six months, they describe a president who has been entirely consistent — just not in the way his August statement promised.

— The Board