In a counter application to the bail application for Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed, Attorney General Anil Nandlall today asked the High Court to strike out large portions of an Affidavit filed in support of Mohamed’s application which calls on the High Court to review the decision of Magistrate Abigail Gibbs not to grant bail to the Leader of the Opposition.

Appearing before Justice Priscilla Chandra-Hanif in the High Court, the Attorney General argued that the 136-paragraph long Affidavit filed by Mohamed’s mother, is highly defective.

According to him, the Affidavit is laden with hearsay and inadmissible material, and therefore should be struck out.

He contends that the Affidavit contains serious allegations against the Guyana Police Force, the Guyana Prison Service and Magistrate Abigail Gibbs.

It was further submitted that more than 100 of the 136 paragraphs in the Affidavits are scandalous, vexatious, and abusive, and should have found no part of the Affidavit.

Additionally, he said it includes information that the applicant knows nothing about.

“It violates almost every rule known to the law in relation to Affidavits. It is sworn to by the mother of the subject, Azruddin Mohamed. The mother doesn’t say she has personal knowledge of anything in the Affidavit. She said she has been advised by Azruddin Mohamed and she swears the Affidavit based upon information he received or he knows about. So, there is a direct admission from the beginning that it is hearsay. It constitutes hearsay, so, that’s one violation that runs throughout. Two, she speaks to a whole host of technical, legal matters that she has no learning on and doesn’t profess to have any education or training on legal matter. Forty-something paragraphs of law that she can’t speak to. Then she speaks to alleged factual situations that she is not aware of, and doesn’t say how she is aware of,” the Attorney General told reporters.

Inside the courtroom, he told Justice Chandra-Hanif that it was one of the worst Affidavits he has ever read and invited the Attorneys for the Applicant to withdraw the Affidavit.

“The Affidavit has 146 paragraphs maybe six is proper. 140 will go, will have to go by law. If 140 out of 146 go, there is no case left in the Fixed Date Application,” the Attorney General said.

However, Attorneys for the Applicant – Senior Counsel Roysdale Forde and Attorney-at-Law Siand Dhurjon – rebuffed the assertions made by the Attorney General.

Dhurjon told the Court that “the State is trying to delay the inevitable” by filing the Notice of Application (NOA) to strike out aspects of Bonita Mohamed’s Affidavit. It was argued that the Affidavit was properly put before the Court, and in accordance with the relevant laws.

“The Attorney General, I have heard him before say that he is the guardian of the Constitution. The guardian of the constitution ought not to take these technical whimsical points about hearsay. If you are the Government and you represent the Government, be honest and say what is true what is not true, whether he should be on bail or no bail,” Dhurjon told reporters.

Dhurjon told the Court that even if the paragraphs in the Affidavit were excised, the application for bail before the Court still stands.

Both Dhurjon and Forde told the Court that they were prepared to respond to the Notice of Application filed by the Attorney General within 24 hours. They said if the Court would allow, they were also prepared to have the Leader of Opposition file a substantive affidavit. In this regard, leave was granted by the Court to have that Affidavit filed by the Opposition Leader.

“He [the Attorney General] has sought to circumvent our application by filing a NOA challenging what Mrs. Mohamed would have said as hearsay. Now this is a court, lawyers have tactics, Mr. Nandlall is entitled to take those tactics to seek to delay the matter. He is entitled to do so and we have taken our position that we do not agree that the matter is hearsay. We do not agree that the Affidavit constitutes hearsay but we have taken the matter a bit further. Under the CPR the court is entitled to administer justice to be her and to get to the substance of it. So, in the event Mrs. Mohamed’s Affidavit constitutes hearsay, we have told the Court that by today, we will have an Affidavit, which will be unobjectionable by Mr. Azruddin Mohamed,” Forde told reporters.

But ahead of that decision to grant Mohamed’s attorneys leave to filed another Affidavit, the Attorney General, who had expressed concern that the respondents were served 24 hours before the hearing of the case, told the Court that justice must not be rushed, warning that rushed justice is crushed justice.

The Attorneys for the Mohameds have until 6pm today to file an Affidavit in the name of the Leader of the Opposition. Justice Hanif has also ordered that Mohamed’s Attorneys be granted permission by the prison service to see him to facilitate that document.

Additionally, Mohameds’ Attorneys have until November 6 to respond to the Attorney General’s application to strike out large portions of the Affidavit. The Attorney General is then expected to respond, if necessary, by November 10 before oral arguments on November 12.

Justice Chandra-Hanif is expected to hand down her ruling in that matter on November 13, while the substantive application regarding the issue of bail for the Opposition Leader will be heard on November 23.

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