Opposition legislator questions police actions regarding US-based activist

GEORGETOWN (CMC):

An opposition legislator has described as “utterly unconstitutional, void and of no legal validity”, the move by the Guyana Police Force (GPF) to serve a Guyana police-issued court summons to a United States political activist to attend court in March next year on charges related to extortion, sedition and inciting public terror.

In a statement last week, the GPF said that Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Rodwell Sarrabo, on December 16, met with Mark Wesserman, a US-based process server, and that they served defendant summons on Rickford Burke at his home address on Maple Street in Brooklyn.

According to the police statement, Burke, a former adviser to the late Guyana president Desmond Hoyte, is wanted on several offences, including “the excitement of hostility or ill-will on the grounds of race, under the Racial Hostility Act, sedition under the Cyber Crime Act, use of a computer system to coerce and intimidate a person, under the Cyber Crime Act. As well as seditious libel contrary to common law”.

The statement said he is also wanted on “seditious libel under the Summary Jurisdiction Offences Act and inciting public terror under the Criminal Law Offences Act”.

Burke has already “categorically denied” being served and in a statement, Opposition Member of Parliament and Senior Counsel, Roysdale Forde said the police action marks “another disconcerting chapter in what appears to be a series of actions constituting transnational repression”.

He said that the jurisdictional extent of the Courts of Guyana and the GPF’s authority “to act in any manner is defined by the geographical limit of Guyana unless specifically and expressly conferred by law.

UNCONSTITUTIONAL

“There is absolutely no legal authority conferred on the Magistrate’s Court to order service of a Defendant’s Summons outside of Guyana and the Guyana Police Force to serve a Defendant’s Summons outside of Guyana,” Forde said, adding “therefore, the conduct of the Guyana Police Force is utterly unconstitutional, void and of no legal validity”.

The opposition legislator said he was also worried by the threat contained in the GPF statement that “a similar course of action” will be adopted against persons who are outside of the jurisdiction and engage in criminal conduct.

“There is no remaining doubt that the Guyana Police Force is nothing more than an instrument of repression and an agent of the PPPC (People’s Progressive Party/Civic) government,” Forde said, adding that the Attorney General Anil Nandlall has refused “to condemn a patent and flagrant breach of the laws of Guyana and of international laws and convention but also he has sheepishly refused to comment.

“In a democracy, the right to criticise the government is not only a cherished privileged but also a foundational and fundamental pillar of a healthy and robust political discourse. Citizens have the right to express dissenting opinions without any fear of persecution, especially when those opinions are voiced abroad.

“Therefore, this recent attempt by the Guyana Police Force to serve a summons overseas is not just a studied attack on an individual; it is a vicious assault on sacred democratic values,” Forde said, urging Guyanese, “particularly those living in the diaspora to take to social media”, to condemn the actions of the government and the GPF.