GUYANA | Irfaan Ali continues to "dilly-dally" on appointing Chief Justice, Chancellor

GEORGETOWN, September 9, 2023 -Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali continues to waffle surrounding the appointment of a substantive Chancellor and Chief Justice who have been acting in excess of five years.

The current acting Chancellor, Yonette Cummings and acting Chief Justice Roxanne George, have been acting in those positions since 2017.

At a press conference on Saturday, President Irfaan Ali repeatedly dodged reporter’s questions on the issue, saying that there are two persons acting in the positions. “Our country is not without a Chief Justice or a Chancellor,” he told reporters.

A substantive Chancellor and Chief Justice have not been appointed in over two decades and the situation has even resulted in rebuke from the President of the Caribbean Court of Justice. resulting in an effective judicial system in the country.

Ali on Saturday told reporters that substantive appointments of the Chief Justice and Chancellor of the Judiciary would have to await the work of the Judicial Service Commission (JSC).

However, according to the Constitution, the Chancellor and Chief Justice shall be appointed by the President after obtaining the agreement of the Leader of the Opposition. The constitution is silent on the appointment of the two positions pursuant to its deliberations.

While the Opposition Leader has signalled his support for the confirmation of Justices Cummings and George to the two top judicial posts, the President in his obfuscation of the issue, has sought to connect the recent appointment of the Judicial Service Commission to the top judicial appointments.

The JSC has nothing constitutionally to do with the substantive appointment of a Chancellor and a Chief Justice but requires the agreement of the Opposition Leader. President Ali said “we have to look at the entire judiciary” which has numerous vacancies. “I want the work of the Judicial Service Commission to be expanded so that we can understand the fullness of the issues and challenges of the judiciary so that we can approach this in a holistic way,” he declared.

“What I am concerned about is an effective Judiciary System; one that we can rely on, one that the international community could rely on, one that is efficient and is supported by the necessary technology and infrastructure that would make them efficient, one in which we have the full complement of judges and magistrates, and that is what the JSC is working,” he said.

In a ruling last April, Justice Damone Younge said while President Ali has not breached the Constitution with the delay in the appointments, the continuous delay has become “untenable” and “unacceptable.”

The High Court Judge said the President and Opposition Leader should immediately commence the process to bring the matter to an end, adding that the acting appointments in the two top Judicial posts have stained the country’s rich legal tapestry.

The Judge said the onus is on both the President and Leader of the Opposition to meet and try to bring the matter to an end.

Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton in June 2022 formally wrote to  Ali stating that he would be supporting Justice Roxane George-Wiltshire to be substantively appointed Chief Justice and Justice of Appeal, Yonette Cummings as Chancellor.  

The CCJ has repeatedly criticised the fact that those two top judicial offices have not had substantive appointments since 2005 due to the failure by the sitting opposition to give it constitutional support for government’s nominees.

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