THE FRAMERS

Jul 10, 2022 News

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The Constitution and You

By Gary Eleazar

Kaieteur News – Last week we began exploring Guyana’s Supreme Legislative instrument—the Constitution of Guyana—which came into force, in October 1980, and its leading affirmations, preceding the provisions or Articles of that document.

We asserted that there would have been numerous contributions to the final formulation of the Constitution by legal luminaries and that since laws are written for its words or text to be taken in the content of its spirit and intent, it would be a good idea to also explore just who exactly played this critical role. Today we meet a few of those learned men who, in one way or another, would have left their words, spirit and intent, entrenched in the fabric of the Guyanese society.

With human beings oftentimes being plagued by limited memory, limited to perhaps one or two generations, it would be good to remember just who wrote Guyana’s constitution.

One such individual credited with contributing is in fact a former Vice President and Deputy Prime Minister of Guyana, who is considered a skilled politician and jurist, Mohamed Shahahbuddeen.

Born on October 7, 1931, he was educated at the University of London with a Bachelor of Law where he graduated in 1958 and in 1970 he earned his Doctor of Philosophy before going on to also secure in 1986 the title of Doctor of Law.

Justice Shahabuddeen began his public service as a Magistrate before joining the Chamber of the Attorney General in 1959 and three years later was appointed Solicitor General, a post he held until 1973 when he was elevated to the position of Attorney General, serving in that capacity from 1978 to 1987.

In 1983, three years after seeing his work being entrenched in the nation’s supreme law, was appointed Deputy Prime Minister and Vice President of Guyana.

During 1988 to 1997, he served as a Judge of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, and was in fact the first from the Commonwealth Caribbean to be accorded that honour.

Other accolades synonymous with Justice Shahabudeen include being a Judge and twice, Vice President of the Yugoslavia Tribunal until 2009.

Justice Shahabuddeen was also an Arbiter in the International Criminal Court, also in The Hague since 1997, and the Centre for International Arbitration in Cairo. In January 2009, he was chosen as a Judge of the International Criminal Court. However, in February he served his resignation for personal reasons. Justice Shahabuddeen was a member of the Institut de Droit International since 1993 and was also the author of several books, including The Legal System of Guyana (Georgetown, 1973); Constitutional Development in Guyana, 1621-1978 (Georgetown, 1978); Nationalisation of Guyana Bauxite (1981) and From Plantocracy to Nationalisation (1983).

In recognition of the distinction and eminence achieved by him, he was awarded by the Government of Guyana the Order of Excellence in 1988, the Order of Roraima in 1980 and the Cacique’s Crown of Honour in 1970.

Justice Shahahbuddeen, died early in the morning on February 17, 2018 in Toronto, Canada, after a brief period of illness. He was 86.

Another of the key pillars in the foundation of Guyana’s Constitution is Frederick “Fred” Rudolph Wills who died in 1992.

The renowned and avid sportsman was also widely regarded as a formidable intellect and statesman.

Wills is cited for his intellectual and academic genius by oral stories from his fellow-Guyanese and globally.

Included in his public service credentials, Wills served as Guyana’s plenipotentiary representative to the international community as the country’s Minster of Foreign Affairs.

In that capacity, Wills briefly presided over the United Nations Security Council and twice addressed the General Assembly, once on independence for East Timor and once on September 27, 1976, to promote a Third World debt moratorium.

Having ended his government service, he later moved to the United States where he became a professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey and an associate of Lyndon LaRouche and was also a founding board member of the Schiller Institute in 1984.

He was educated at King’s College London, where he was awarded the Jelf Medal for his outstanding academic success as a law graduate and was also named Queens Counsel, the highest level of judges in England.

Wills however, never practiced as a judge in England, instead returning to Guyana.

On his return to his homeland, Wills would quickly climb the ranks of the learned becoming one of the top legal minds in Guyana, whilst also contributing to developing the law and the supreme constitution of Guyana.

Following his cricketing passion, Wills also served as club captain for the Demerara Cricket Club (DCC) in Georgetown, Guyana, and was a popular radio announcer at cricket games and for the programme ‘Fred Wills on Sport’ transmitted in the Caribbean region.

Among the enigmatic personalities to have contributed to the Constitution of Guyana, Sir Shridath Surendranath Ramphal, fondly referred to by his comrades as Sir Sonny is a towering giant.

Born in October 1928, Sir Shridath, in addition to being foreign minister of Guyana from 1972 to 1975 and assistant attorney general of the West Indies Federation from 1958 to 1962, was the second Commonwealth Secretary-General, holding the position from 1975 to 1990.

A Berbician by birth, Sir Shridath hails from New Amsterdam, of the then British Guiana colony.

Having completed secondary education in Georgetown, the young Ramphal moved to England where he pursued law at the King’s College London, graduating with LL.B. and LL.M. degrees and was called to the bar at Gray’s Inn in London in 1951. He continued studying law for a year at Harvard Law School in the US on a 1962 Guggenheim Fellowship.

Ramphal’s legal career as a Crown Counsel in the Attorney-General’s Office began in 1953 when he became Solicitor-General and then Assistant Attorney-General for the West Indies Federation. After a period in private practice in Jamaica he returned to British Guiana in 1965 to be the Attorney General.

He was later appointed Minister of State in the Ministry of External Affairs, later becoming Minister of Justice (from 1973) and Minister of Foreign Affairs (from 1972) before leaving Guyana in 1975 to take up the post of Commonwealth Secretary-General.

The Guyanese statesman also served as the Chancellor of the University of Warwick from 1989 to 2002, at the University of the West Indies from 1989 to 2003, and at the University of Guyana from 1990 to 1992.

Among the accolades to his name include the Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George. He was knighted in the 1970 New Year Honours and invested with his knighthood by the Queen at Buckingham Palace on February 3.

Sir Shridath was also appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Michael and St. George in 1980.

On February 26, 1982, Sir Shridath was also appointed an honourary Companion of the Order of Australia (AC).

Ramphal in 1990 was the 19th appointee to the Order of New Zealand, that country’s highest civil honour.

The Guyanese luminary was also decorated as a Member of the Order of the Caribbean Community (OCC) in the first conferment in 1992 and in May 2006 Sir Shridath was appointed a Honourary Fellow of Royal Society of Arts. He is a vice-president of the Royal Commonwealth Society. The Ramphal Building at the University of Warwick was named in his honour. In 2002, Ramphal was also awarded the Indira Gandhi Peace Prize.

In the coming week, the Constitution and You will delve a little more into the minds and personalities that formulated the Constitution of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana.

Feel free to send comments to [email protected] or [email protected]
(Disclaimer: The author of this article is not an attorney or constitutional scholar and the information conveyed above is not meant to be legal advice on Constitutional matters in any way)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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