Sukul’s disbarment is a national
embarrassment – Chris Ram
- calls for Presidential inquiry
The disbarment in England and subsequent resignation of Court of Appeal Judge, Rabi Sukul is a National embarrassment and the President must immediately set up an inquiry in the circumstances of his appointment.
This is the view held by practicing Attorney-at Law, Christopher Ram, who in his chrisram.net outlet, noted that the offence committed by Justice Sukul in England also takes place in Guyana.
Attorney-at-Law, Christopher Ram
Ram, in his writings said, “What is frightening is that a colleague who practises daily in the courts told me that the sin of drafting false grounds of appeal that led to the disbarment of former Justice Sukul, is committed regularly in the Guyana courts, even by seasoned lawyers.”
He opined that, “those civilized rules seem alien to Guyana where an attorney convicted and jailed in Canada practises in the courts in Berbice despite the information about his conviction having been brought to the attention of and acknowledged by the Attorney General.”
Ram said “spin it however we might,” the Sukul revelation, “is a huge embarrassment to the country, the Government, the Chancellor, what exists of the Judicial Service Commission, the Attorney General and the legal profession.”
Ram in his analysis noted that according to a statement from the Office of the Chancellor, he learnt of the disbarment 11 days after the decision by the London Tribunal and nine days after it appeared in the London Law Gazette.
According to Ram, “the statement from the Chancellor’s Office did not offer any reason for his action in seeking Justice Sukul’s resignation rather than moving to have him removed in accordance with the procedures set out in the Constitution…If the Chancellor’s call for the resignation and Justice Sukul’s compliance were seen to be the end of the matter, they would invite all kinds of speculation by a justifiably skeptical public.”
He suggested that for the public to be satisfied, the action by the Chancellor leaves no option but for the President, who appoints and removes judges, to set up an Inquiry into all the circumstances surrounding the appointment of Justice Sukul.
Such an Inquiry will necessarily exclude the three ex-officio members of the Judicial Service Commission and must have the power to subpoena records and persons.
Justice Rabi Sukul at his swearing-in ceremony with President Donald Ramotar last year
“We have to make sure that the architecture that permitted this travesty to occur is dismantled.”
Ram said that the Sukul Saga has exposed some serious flaws in the constitutional arrangements governing the Judicial Service Commission and its methods of operation.
According to Ram, Guyana needs a more effective Judiciary than the one Constitutional Division of which is limited to a single judge and of which the top two persons have been singled out by the politicians for tax free salaries.
“That is antithetical (adverse or opposing) to the rule of law which requires all to be treated equally…The public expects improvements to a Judiciary that often appears dysfunctional and that brings the country into such untimely disrepute (not that there is such a thing as timely disrepute!).”
He posits that the constitutional arrangements governing the composition and conduct of the Judicial Service Commission needs fixing with provision for an independent Chairman.
“But we must not fool ourselves: our legal problem neither begins nor ends with the judiciary…The Guyana Bar Association, of which I am the Secretary, has been largely silent while the judiciary and the Justice Improvement Project on which billions have been spent seem to move in opposite direction.”
He noted that as the Bar Association considers its response to the Sukul issue, it must also address the improper conduct of legal practitioners, including their employment of touts.
The Bar Association, he said, has to justify the privileged place society accords the legal profession and to recognise that its objects extend well beyond representing lawyers’ interests.
According to Ram, “It is regrettable that what was planned as a celebration to Justice (Desiree) Bernard has drawn heightened focus on a dark day for Guyana’s Judiciary and the country.”
Ram in his piece noted that fate could hardly have been crueler, given this week marks the first occasion that the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) is meeting in Guyana as an itinerant court.
“It should have been a moment of pride for our judiciary and a tribute to our own Justice Madame Desiree Bernard, CCH, OR on whose long legal career, including a place on the CCJ, the curtain will soon close.”
Instead, he observed, the cocktails and lunches being arranged for the distinguished visiting legal luminaries will not erase the embarrassment of the most recently appointed member of our Appellate Court Justice Rabi Sukul being disbarred from practising in the UK by the Bar Council of England and Wales for intentionally misleading his client by drafting false grounds of appeal.
“At every hopeful point at which the pessimists think the country has exhausted its sack of scandals, another one surfaces, exposing the immoral underbelly of a soulless country: one of failed, or dysfunctional, or non-functional national institutions.”
According to Ram, “we – and I mean mainly the business class and the professionals – are too comfortable, compromised or cowardly to challenge the illegalities and improprieties that are perpetrated daily by public offices in Guyana.”
