THE SILENCE THAT SPEAKS

THE SILENCE THAT SPEAKS

OPINION BY: Hem Kumar September 2026

A Judge, a Visa, and the Question No One in Authority Will Answer

On Saturday, September 19, 2026, High Court Judge Gino Persaud arrived at check-in for a flight that was to take him, via the United States, to Kingston, Jamaica, for the Commonwealth Magistrates’ and Judges’ Association’s Annual Conference. He did not board. Airline personnel told him his United States visa was “under review.” No further explanation was offered — not to him, and not, in the hours since, to the public he serves as a sitting judge.

This editorial board will not tell readers what happened to Justice Persaud’s visa, because no one outside the U.S. State Department currently knows. We will not call it a revocation, because the reporting does not establish one. What we will do is set out, without embellishment, what is known — and let readers draw their own conclusions about what it means when a judge who has ruled against the State finds his ability to travel abruptly, unexplainably obstructed.

WHAT IS CONFIRMED

Justice Persaud was appointed a Puisne Judge of the High Court in July 2017, following the constitutionally mandated process before the Judicial Service Commission. In the years since, he has built a record that includes rulings uncomfortable for the Government of Guyana.

In March 2023, Justice Persaud ruled that President Irfaan Ali’s suspension of members of the Police Service Commission was unlawful — a direct constitutional rebuke of an act of executive power.

In July 2026, Justice Persaud ruled that the Guyana Revenue Authority had acted unlawfully, unreasonably, and beyond its statutory powers in pursuing tax claims against members of the Mohamed family over the importation of a Ferrari and a Rolls-Royce, restraining GRA enforcement and awarding costs against the Authority.

In proceedings concerning Venezuelan assets and Petro Caribe funds, Justice Persaud publicly pushed back against submissions from the Attorney General’s Chambers that he characterized as carrying a “veiled threat” to judicial independence — a characterization serious enough that the Attorney General himself issued a public response.

On September 19, 2026 — within weeks of the GRA ruling becoming public — Justice Persaud was stopped at check-in and told his U.S. visa was under review, preventing him from attending a Commonwealth judicial conference centered on judicial independence and the rule of law.

A review is a process. The silence is a choice.

WHAT IS NOT CONFIRMED

We do not know why Justice Persaud’s visa is under review. We do not know whether the review is connected in any way to his judicial rulings. We do not know whether any Guyanese official — in the Judiciary, the Attorney General’s Chambers, or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs — has sought or received clarification from the United States Embassy in Georgetown. As of publication, none of those institutions has said a word.

That silence is itself the story this editorial is written to examine.

THE QUESTION INSTITUTIONS HAVE DECLINED TO ANSWER

A visa action against a foreign national is, as a matter of U.S. practice, a decision made by U.S. authorities alone — and this board does not suggest Washington acted at Georgetown’s direction, nor does it possess evidence of any such request. But the absence of an external Guyanese hand does not resolve the question that matters to this country’s institutional health: why has no Guyanese authority — not the Judiciary, not the Attorney General, not the Ministry of Foreign Affairs — stepped forward to clarify the circumstances facing a sitting High Court judge, defend the integrity of his office, or simply confirm what, if anything, they know?

Judicial independence is not only threatened by an order issued to a judge. It is also threatened by the conditions under which every other judge in this country now deliberates — aware that a colleague who ruled against the Guyana Revenue Authority and against a presidential suspension is, weeks later, unable to leave the country, with no institution rushing to either explain the circumstances or vouch for him.

Whether or not causation is ever established, the chilling effect does not wait for proof. It operates on inference, and institutional silence is what feeds it.

WHAT THIS BOARD IS ASKING

We are not asking readers to accept that Justice Persaud’s visa review is retaliation for his rulings. We do not have the evidence to make that claim, and we will not manufacture certainty where none exists — that is precisely the practice this board has criticized in others.

We are asking why the institutions constitutionally charged with defending judicial independence — the Judicial Service Commission, the Chancellor’s Chambers, the Attorney General — have had nothing to say about a sitting judge’s unexplained inability to travel. We are asking whether the U.S. Embassy in Georgetown has been approached for clarification, and if not, why not. We are asking whether any other member of the delegation to Kingston experienced a comparable obstruction, which would materially change the picture, or whether Justice Persaud’s case stands alone.

Until those questions are answered, this board will not pretend to know what happened to Justice Gino Persaud’s visa. But we will not pretend, either, that the timing is irrelevant, or that institutional silence in the face of a legitimate public question is itself a neutral act

Readers are capable of connecting a timeline. We have given them one.

Guyana’s judiciary does not need this board’s defense of any particular ruling Justice Persaud has made. It needs the institutions responsible for judicial independence to demonstrate, through action rather than silence, that a judge who rules against the State does not thereby become a judge the State abandons.

— The Board