President urges new Judges not to be persuaded by emotions or public opinions

As ten new High Court Judges took their oath of office today, President Irfaan Ali urged them to not be persuaded by their emotions or public opinions when giving judgments, but rather to focus on the law and the facts before them.

Addressing the Judges at his office, President Ali also encouraged the new Judges to strive at all times to ensure that their rulings can withstand scrutiny.

“Also in your profession, your judgements and writings must withstand academic scrutiny and historical scrutiny. In your discipline, what you do must be able to withstand scrutiny and of cause in the judiciary too, as system change, the public court as many will refer to is also out there, but as I said, your character and your separation of personal feelings must also allow you to separate public sentiments sometimes from what you write,” the President told the new Judges.

The ten new Judges have been appointed at time when the High Court is faced with a backlog of cases, with repeated calls for the issue to be addressed.

Last year, the Judicial Service Commission took a decision to advertise for the position. A total of 37 persons responded to the vacancies, but only ten were selected by the JSC.

“For those who were lawyers and representing their clients, you always look out for what was in the best interest of your clients, today, you are called on as the oath suggest, to separate personal sentiments in dealing with cases before you,” the President stated.

The Judges were told that their work should enhance jurisprudence not only here in Guyana, but throughout the region.

‘The Legal community and the judiciary are looked up to in a special way because what you do in this profession, especially as judges, the way you write and the way you rule, is not only for the moment in time, it constitute precedence and if you do, what you are called upon to do, with a great sense or responsibility and critical thinking and with full application of the law, and transparency and openness, then what you do forms precedence and those precedence are things that keeps the judicial system going,” the President said.

The ten new Judges are former Commissioner of Title, Nicola Pierre, former Deputy Commissioner of the Guyana Revenue Authority, Joy Persaud-Singh, former GRA Attorney, Hessaun Sharifa-Yasin, former Magistrates Sherdel Isaacs-Marcus, Peter Hugh, and Zamilla Ally-Seepaul, former Judge of the Eastern Caribbean Court, Jaqueline Josiah-Graham, and former corporate Attorney Nigel Niles, along with Deborah Kumar-Chetty and former Commissioner of Title Prescilla Chandra-Haniff.