The Minister Must Clarify: When “Protocol” Becomes an Excuse

592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

The Minister Must Clarify :When “Protocol” Becomes an Excuse

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Her intervention came not through a formal ministerial statement setting out the safeguards for the complainant, the independence of the investigation, or the status of the accused officer. It came in a Starting Point podcast interview, where the Minister appeared uncertain about the procedure and introduced the troubling prospect of a “formal confrontation.”

When the Minister of Home Affairs says that a “formal confrontation” will be held in a rape investigation involving a senior police officer, the public is entitled to ask exactly what she means. This is not social-media chatter. It is not a quarrel between private citizens. It concerns an allegation of rape and threatening behavior against Deputy Commissioner Fazil Karimbaksh, the Head of the Special Organized Crime Unit. That choice of words cannot be brushed aside.

The allegation is serious. The office held by the accused is powerful. The complainant, we are told, is a serving police officer. That alone should have required the greatest care in language, procedure and public communication.

Instead, the country was left with the phrase: “formal confrontation.” When asked whether this was standard practice for rape allegations, she suggested that Karimbaksh’s office as a Deputy Commissioner required a “particular procedure” to be followed. 

That phrase should never have been casually deployed without explanation.

But rank does not create a special criminal-investigation procedure that displaces the Sexual Offences Act.

If anything, the rank of the accused requires stronger safeguards: a clearly independent team, protection against interference, prompt preservation of evidence, insulation of witnesses, and removal of the accused from operational command while the investigation proceeds.

The law does not bend upward for powerful people

What The Law Says

Section 42 of the Sexual Offences Act is not ambiguous.

Guyana’s Sexual Offences Act is clear on the point. Section 42, under the heading “Confrontation,” does not create a general requirement for a complainant to come face-to-face with an accused person. It protects against that.

The provision says that a complainant who reports a sexual offence cannot be required to recount the complaint in the presence of the accused unless the complainant wishes to do so. Nor can the complainant be compelled to view or be in the presence of the alleged perpetrator, except in the limited circumstance of an identification procedure, where safeguards are meant to apply.

That means the Minister’s words require answers.

◊Was the complainant asked whether she wished to take part in a face-to-face encounter with Karimbaksh?

◊Has she voluntarily agreed to one?

◊Was a confrontation proposed by investigators, by the accused, or by some other official?

◊What precisely would occur during it?

◊Would the complainant have independent legal representation, support personnel, and the ability to decline or end the process?

That is the law. So when the Home Affairs Minister speaks of a “formal confrontation,” there are only a few possibilities.

◊Perhaps she meant that investigators will confront the accused with the allegation and the evidence gathered. That is normal investigative work.

◊Perhaps she meant that investigators will separately interview the complainant, the accused, relevant witnesses and other persons who may hold information. That, too, is normal investigative work.

◊Perhaps she meant a procedural exercise in which both versions are tested against documentary, digital, forensic, medical or witness evidence. Again, that is what an investigation is supposed to do.

But if she meant that the complainant is expected to sit across from the man she accuses of rape and threats, then the Minister must explain how that accords with Section 42.

Or did the Minister simply use the word “confrontation” without understanding that Parliament used the same word in Section 42 to establish a safeguard against forced contact between a complainant and an accused?

The public should not have to guess which explanation is correct. The Minister should state it plainly. And she must explain it quickly.

The Accused Remains On Duty

The other glaring issue is that Karimbaksh appears to remain at work while the investigation proceeds.

Walrond has said that, in her view, he should be sent on administrative leave. Yet she also says that this falls within the domain of the Police Service Commission, which is not presently constituted. The result appears to be paralysis: everyone acknowledges the seriousness of the complaint, but the official against whom it has been made remains on the job.

That cannot be accepted as an adequate institutional response.

A vacant or non-functioning Police Service Commission does not create a vacuum in which basic safeguards disappear. It cannot mean that a Deputy Commissioner facing an allegation of rape and threatening behaviour remains in an active operational position because the body that would ordinarily act is unavailable.

There must be another lawful administrative mechanism. There must be an acting authority. There must be an office capable of protecting the integrity of an investigation involving a senior police officer. If there is not, then that itself is an institutional scandal demanding immediate executive action. No one is suggesting that administrative leave is a finding of guilt. It is not.

It is a risk-management measure. It protects the investigation from actual or perceived interference. It reassures witnesses that they can cooperate freely. It helps protect records, electronic communications, station logs and other material that may become relevant. It also protects Karimbaksh from the allegation that he used his office, influence or access to compromise the process.

The question is simple: who will bell the cat?

The Greene Precedent

Guyana has been here before.

When then Commissioner of Police Henry Greene faced a rape allegation in 2011, the country confronted the obvious problem of police officers investigating their own Commissioner. Greene stepped away from his duties, and external assistance was sought for the investigation.

The handling of that matter was far from a model. It attracted sustained public criticism, legal controversy and continuing questions over accountability. But it did establish two principles that should not now be forgotten merely because the name of the accused has changed.

First, the officer should not remain in effective operational control while a grave allegation is under investigation.

Second, where allegations reach the highest levels of the Guyana Police Force, the investigation must have visible independence. It must not merely be described as impartial; it must be structured in a way that gives the public reason to believe it is impartial.

An internal team appointed by the Police Commissioner may be lawful. But legality is not the only issue. The issue is confidence.

Can serving police officers investigate a Deputy Commissioner, a SOCU Head, a senior colleague, and a man with institutional relationships across the Force, without external oversight or assistance?

The State must answer that question with more than assurances.

Protocol Cannot Prevail Over Justice

The Minister’s position appears to be that administrative leave is desirable but that “protocol” and the absence of a functioning Police Service Commission stand in the way.

That is precisely backwards.

Protocols exist to protect the public interest. They are not meant to shelter the State from acting when the public interest demands action.

Where a protocol produces the result that an officer accused of rape and threats remains at work because no one is prepared to assume responsibility, the problem is no longer merely procedural. It becomes a failure of governance.

A government cannot invoke “due process” only when it serves to postpone difficult decisions. Due process requires a fair investigation. It does not require the accused to remain in an operational position while that investigation is conducted.

Nor does it require the complainant to navigate an investigation while the accused retains the authority, relationships and institutional standing of a Deputy Commissioner.

This is where leadership matters.

Someone must identify the lawful route for temporarily relieving Karimbaksh of operational responsibility. Someone must decide whether the Police Commissioner has authority to reassign duties, restrict access, place the officer on leave, or otherwise remove him from any position that could affect the investigation. Someone must determine whether Cabinet, the President, the Police Commissioner, the Attorney General, or another constitutionally authorized office must act to address the vacuum created by the absence of a Police Service Commission.

But someone must act.

What Must Happen Now

The public needs more than statements promising professionalism and impartiality. It needs concrete safeguards.

◊ Karimbaksh should be immediately relieved of operational responsibilities pending the outcome of the investigation, without prejudice to his right to due process.

◊The Government and Police Force should state the legal and administrative basis for that temporary step, including what authority will act in the absence of a constituted Police Service Commission.

◊The investigation should be independently supervised, with external investigators or credible external oversight considered because of Karimbaksh’s rank and position.

◊The authorities should publicly clarify what “formal confrontation” means and confirm that the complainant will not be required to be in Karimbaksh’s presence unless she freely chooses to do so.

◊The complainant should be offered independent legal support, trauma-informed assistance and appropriate protection from intimidation or retaliation.

◊The Force should identify, at minimum, the independence safeguards, reporting structure and expected timetable for the investigative team, without compromising the integrity of the inquiry.

◊All potentially relevant evidence—including electronic communications, call records, duty rosters, official logs, access records and CCTV material—should be promptly secured.

The police statement says the allegations will be investigated professionally, impartially and according to established procedures. That is the minimum promise the public should expect.

But a promise is not a safeguard.

The test is whether the accused remains in a position of operational influence; whether the complainant is protected by the law; whether the investigative team is visibly independent; and whether the Government can demonstrate that “protocol” will not be used as a shield for institutional inaction

A Legal Title Is Not Understanding

Oneidge Walrond is a lawyer. She was a magistrate. She is now Minister of Home Affairs, with political responsibility for a ministry that includes national security and has direct relevance to policing, public safety and the administration of justice.

Those credentials should make the public more confident that statutory safeguards will be understood and respected. They should mean that language is used precisely, especially in a case of this gravity.

Instead, the Minister used a term that appears in the statute itself—“confrontation”—without making clear whether she understood that the section is designed to prevent a complainant from being compelled into one.

At some point, titles cease to be reassuring. They become the reason the public expects better.

A lawyer should know the significance of the words she uses. A former magistrate should understand the difference between lawful procedure and avoidable re-traumatisation. A Home Affairs Minister should recognize that public remarks can shape the conduct of police officers, investigators and junior officials who may take their cues from the political head of the sector.

The Larger Failure

The issue is larger than one statement, one podcast or one official.

Guyana has repeatedly passed laws that sound progressive on paper but are weakened by poor implementation, weak institutional culture and an alarming willingness by officials to treat rights as administrative inconveniences.

A statute can say the right thing. But if police officers, ministers, prosecutors and investigators do not understand the right thing—or do not believe they must follow it—the protection becomes theoretical.

Put The Safeguards Into Practice

Guyana does not need another episode in which officials discover the meaning of the law only after the public embarrasses them into reading it.

The Minister should clarify her statement. The Guyana Police Force should publicly identify the safeguards governing the investigation. The complainant should be told, unequivocally, that she cannot be compelled to confront the accused. And the public should be assured that the accused will receive a fair process without the complainant being exposed to pressure, intimidation or re-traumatisation.

That is not radical.That is not anti-police.That is not a conviction before trial.

It is the bare minimum required when the allegation is rape, the accused is a Deputy Commissioner, and the State claims to be governed by law.

The use of the local vernacular  may be tempting here. But the more serious word is failure: failure of precision, failure of leadership, and failure to understand that in sexual-offence cases, procedure is not separate from justice. Procedure is justice.