…a miracle?
In our judicial system, every litigant’s entitled to hope – but while some hope for justice, others hope for a procedural miracle!! As July 29 approaches, your Eyewitness suspects Sanction Man is hoping the CCJ discovers a legal rabbit that neither our High Court nor our Court of Appeal could find in the hat. The latest source of optimism is T&T – where Jack Warner did a Jack Horner and pulled out a plum to have his decade-long, FIFA-origin extradition proceedings thrown out after the State couldn’t produce the very legal agreement it claimed justified sending him to the US!! That judgment must’ve set Sanction Man’s heart palpitating – if T&T’s Government can’t produce the legal key to unlock extradition, perhaps Guyana also cannot??
Well, there’s one hitch – Guyana’s already produced the key!! Unlike T&T, our case has never rested on some mysterious “bespoke agreement” hidden in a ministerial filing cabinet between the Christmas decorations and obsolete policy papers!! It relied on a much older, tested document: the UK-US Extradition Treaty of 1931, continued after our independence – together with the Fugitive Offenders Act that provides the domestic machinery for acting upon extradition requests!! That rather spoils the dramatic courtroom moment where counsel rises triumphantly and declares, “Produce the agreement!” – only to be met with sheepish silence!! In our case, the response would be, “Certainly. Here it is, budday!!!”
Which brings Sanction Man back right where he started!! His appeal ain’t really about whether Guyana got the legal power to extradite. It’s about whether the Home Affairs Minister exercised that power lawfully, independently and without bias. While he’s grasping at straws, questioning whether the legal foundation for extradition exists at all ain’t even a straw!! The danger in borrowing too much confidence from the Warner decision is mistaking similarity of subject for similarity of facts. Both cases involve extradition, the US and prominent political figures. But beyond those headlines, the legal roads quickly diverge!!
T&T’s road asks, “Where’s the agreement?” Guyana’s asks, “Did the Minister exercise her discretion properly?” They ain’t the same destination. The CCJ ain’t gonna confuse a missing document in Port of Spain with a produced treaty in Georgetown simply because both cases happen to involve OFAC and extradition. On July 29, Sanction Man’s gonna discover that hope ain’t a recognised ground of appeal!! The CCJ ain’t deciding whether he’s innocent or guilty of the charges made by the US. It’s deciding whether Guyana acted within the law when the Minister set the extradition process in motion!!
And the answer’s gonna be yes!! So dreaming about Jack’s plum would’ve served much the same purpose as bringing an umbrella to a cricket match played indoors.
Comforting, perhaps. Useful, not so much!!
…American greenbacks
Your Eyewitness has often bemoaned the fact that while the US wants the Chinks outa our hemisphere in general and Guyana in particular – as far as business and strategic initiatives like the B&I are concerned – they haven’t been stepping to the plate with the necessary investments our development agenda demands!!
While the US Exim Bank had provided a US$2.5B Line of Credit…it was left for US firms to use that credit with concrete business projects – like the pioneering Wales GtE initiative!! Well, your Eyewitness was chuffed to see that last Friday, Guyana and the US held the first-ever Guyana Investment Enabling Forum in Washington, DC! In attendance were senior US Government officials and representatives of major American corporations.
Pipping China’s coyness on the subject, the Forum underscored the US’s “unwavering support and respect for Guyana’s sovereignty and territorial integrity as a foundation for continued cooperation and investment”!!
While oil has made the US our largest source of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and our leading trade partner, hopefully investments gonna now be more diversified!!
…investor identity
Canada’s First Bauxite restarted and retooled bauxite mining in Essequibo’s Bonasika area a while back – specialising in non-metallurgical ore. They’ve just been acquired by a “Strategic Bauxite” company – that’s provided no bona fides.
Not good enough!!
The post Awaiting… appeared first on Guyana Times.
