When Public Office Becomes a Plea for Privilege

592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

When Public Office Becomes a Plea for Privilege

OPINION BY : Hem Kumar October 2026

Daniel Seeram is entitled to pursue every remedy available to him under the law. He may apply for judicial review, seek bail pending sentencing, appeal where the law permits, and demand that his rights be respected at every stage. That is not the controversy.

The controversy lies in the argument now being advanced in support of his release: that his continued detention disrupts the work of Guyana’s Border Patrol Unit, a state security body whose operations, it is claimed, include weekly engagements with the President.

That assertion ought to trouble every Guyanese who believes that public office carries responsibility rather than privilege.

A man convicted by a court of assaulting and causing actual bodily harm to his former wife is now asking the High Court to consider the importance of his government assignment as a reason why he ought not remain in custody pending sentencing. The question is unavoidable: when did a state appointment become a mitigating circumstance against the ordinary administration of justice?

Seeram’s position at the Border Patrol Unit is not a private job. It is a national-security appointment. It is connected to state authority, public confidence, the integrity of the borders, and the serious responsibility entrusted to those who operate close to the country’s security apparatus. Such an office should impose a higher threshold of conduct, not create a softer landing when the holder is convicted of a violent offence.

If the Border Patrol Unit cannot function because one convicted official is unavailable for a few days, then the issue is not bail. The issue is institutional weakness. A state security entity cannot be built around the personal availability of one man, especially one who is awaiting sentencing after a criminal conviction. Any properly administered public body must have continuity plans, deputies, lines of command, and procedures capable of surviving the temporary absence of an official.

And what happens if a custodial sentence is imposed on November 2?

Will the court then be told that imprisonment cannot proceed because the Border Patrol Unit needs its coordinator? Will a victim impact statement, the probation report, the aggravating factors, and the court’s final sentencing discretion be expected to yield to the scheduling needs of a government agency? Surely that cannot be the standard Guyana is now prepared to accept.

This is why the matter extends beyond Seeram’s personal application. It reaches into the heart of equal justice. The ordinary Guyanese who is convicted of assault does not generally arrive before the court with the implied weight of a state-security title, weekly meetings with the President, political access, or the suggestion that official duties should soften the consequences of a remand order.

That does not mean Seeram must be denied rights because of his employment. Quite the opposite: the law must be applied fairly, soberly, and without prejudice. But fairness also means that state office must not become an informal passport to exceptional treatment. A convicted citizen is still entitled to due process; a connected official must not be entitled to more process, more comfort, more access, or more accommodation than the public can reasonably expect.

There is also the unresolved question of fitness for office. What is the government’s position on retaining a national-security official who has been convicted of assault causing actual bodily harm? Has he been suspended, placed on administrative leave, relieved of sensitive duties, or permitted to continue exercising state authority as though nothing has occurred?

Those are not vindictive questions. They are questions of public administration. They concern standards, integrity, victim protection, and the credibility of a government that routinely speaks of law and order.

The High Court must be allowed to determine Seeram’s application on the law, and the Magistrate must remain free to proceed to sentencing on the evidence, the probation report, the victim impact statement, and the relevant aggravating and mitigating factors—without political atmosphere, executive intrusion, or the quiet pressure that can follow a man who holds a sensitive state appointment.

But the executive, too, must understand the limits of its role. It cannot be seen to mobilize protection, access, or institutional convenience around a convicted official in a manner that suggests the law bends differently for those close to power.

If Seeram’s lawyers believe the Magistrate erred, let them make that case on law. Let the High Court decide it on law. Let the eventual sentence be determined by “the evidence, the statutory framework, the probation report, the victim impact statement, and the principles of justice.”

But this case is not only about the rights of the convicted. It is also about the right of Farzana Hamid to equity, fairness, dignity, and confidence that the law sees the harm done to her as seriously as it sees the professional convenience of the man convicted of causing it. A victim of domestic violence must not be made to feel that state office, political proximity, or institutional influence weighs more heavily than her safety and her right to justice.

If Guyana claims to care about the persistent scourge of domestic violence and femicide, then it must mean more than public statements, commemorative observances, and official slogans. It must mean allowing the courts to act without fear or favor. It must mean accepting that a woman’s decision to leave a marriage does not give any man a license to assault, intimidate, or punish her afterward. The fact that this offence was committed against an ex-wife, after the relationship had legally ended, should deepen—not diminish—the seriousness with which the country views it.

And what message are we sending to Guyanese women if a convicted senior official can invoke the importance of his government job as an argument for exceptional accommodation? What should women conclude when the public sees concern for the operational needs of a state unit raised alongside the incarceration of a man convicted of violence against his former spouse?

Seeram is entitled to due process, legal representation, and every lawful remedy open to him. But Farzana Hamid is entitled to no less than a justice system in which power, status, access, and public appointment do not tilt the scales.

Equality before the law cannot be a promise reserved for the powerless while the connected are offered a separate lane around accountability.

For every woman watching, this is the real test: when she reports violence, will Guyana’s courts protect her with the same seriousness that they protect the convenience and standing of the powerful?

But let no one confuse a government job with immunity.

Public office is not a shield from accountability. It is an added burden of accountability. And if Guyana allows state authority to become a plea for private privilege, then the message to every ordinary citizen will be chillingly clear: there is one measure of justice for the connected, and another for everyone else.