Convicted murderer Yasseen testifies against Chancellor
by George Barclay
CONVICTED murderer Abdool Yasseen, who has brought contempt proceedings against three judges of the Guyana Court of Appeal, yesterday testified before the Full Court constituted by Justice Desmond Burch-Smith and Justice Carl Singh. Yasseen was testifying on his own behalf in support of his affidavit in which he attributed certain remarks to have been made at the Appellate Court by the Chancellor. Led by his lawyer Mr Nigel Hughes, Yasseen, who was brought to Court by an order of the Court in keeping with an application from his lawyers, testified that he had attended the Guyana Court of Appeal. According to him, Chancellor Cecil Kennard and Justices of Appeal Lennox Perry and Prem Persaud constituted the Court, which was prevented from sitting because of apparent bias. Present in Court, he said, were Attorney General Mr Charles Ramson, Senior Counsel; Director of Prisons, Mr B. Erskine; two Prison warders and a reporter, George Barclay. Yasseen testified that the Clerk, Mr Rishi Persaud, called the matter between 9.15 and 9.30 hours. Among other things, he said the Chancellor had said, was "That the judges who made this order were not fit to be judges." Since then, the judges represented by Mr Ashton Chase, Senior Counsel, have applied to the Full Court for a re-hearing on the grounds that the Full Court judges had proceeded with an ex parte hearing without giving them an opportunity to be heard. The applicants Yasseen and Noel Thomas, who are alleging that the Appellate Court judges committed contempt by sitting in an appeal pertaining to them, when they (the judges) were forbidden to do so by the Full Court, is urging the Full Court not to hear an application by the judges until they have purged themselves of contempt. Senior Counsel Mr Ashton Chase, representing the Court of Appeal judges, submitted that the Full Court had no jurisdiction to hear the matter, and that the judges enjoy judicial immunity. But Mr Stephen Fraser, representing the condemned murderers, described Mr Chase's submission about the Court having no jurisdiction as a sham or veil drawn to hide the real issue. Fraser submitted that the Full Court had jurisdiction and declared that it was given the power by the Guyana Court of Appeal since the 1980s. At a previous hearing, Mr Chase had contended that the Full Court had no jurisdiction to find the defendants guilty of contempt and it was not open to any other Court to do so. Therefore, he said, there was no question of oral evidence being taken. In the continuing so-called `battle of the Courts', Fraser, acting on behalf of the appellants, had laid the accusation against Chancellor of the Judiciary Cecil Kennard and Justices of Appeal Lennox Perry and Prem Persaud after they sat following the controversial Full Court restraining order that stalled hearing of an appeal by the Attorney General and the Director of Prisons against a decision in favour of Abdool Saleem Yasseen and Noel Thomas. The appellants have said in their affidavits that since the Full Court ruling preventing the defendants from sitting on the appeal because of apparent bias, they (the judges) sat in the matter and fixed dates for its hearing Also, that during the extant trial of the contempt case, they had gone ahead and set a date for the continuation. At yesterday's proceedings, Mr Chase said that in view of his earlier submissions that the Full Court did not have jurisdiction, he would take no further part in that aspect of the proceedings. As a consequence, Mr Chase did not cross-examine Abdool Yasseen. The Full Court will announce a date when it will give its decision in relation to whether the Appellate Court judges are guilty of contempt of Court.
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