标签： Guyana

In an unusual development that has raised unaddressed questions, Guyana’s Judicial Service Commission (JSC) has finally made public an appointment to the country’s top magistracy post that was finalized more than a year and a half ago. The commission quietly named Principal Magistrate Judy Latchman as Guyana’s new Chief Magistrate on January 7, 2025, but the official announcement of the appointment only came on July 14, 2026, via a late-night update posted to the Supreme Court of Judicature’s official Facebook page. Per the commission’s statement, Latchman’s appointment has been retroactively effective from the original nomination date in January 2025. Notably, no official explanation has been provided for the 18-month gap between the appointment decision and its public disclosure.

Latchman brings over two decades of legal and judicial experience to the role, with a well-documented professional trajectory rooted in Guyana’s legal system. She earned her Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Guyana in 2002, followed by a Legal Education Certificate from the Trinidad-based Hugh Wooding Law School in 2004. Later that same year, in October 2004, she was formally admitted to the Bar of Guyana, marking the official start of her legal career.

Her first professional role was as a State Counsel in the Chambers of the Director of Public Prosecutions, a position she took up immediately after admission to the bar. She rose through the ranks quickly, earning a promotion to Senior State Counsel in that same department by 2008. In 2009, Latchman made the transition to the magistracy, building a reputation for consistent judicial service over the next eight years that led to her elevation to Principal Magistrate in 2017, the role she held before her 2025 appointment to Chief Magistrate.

Beyond her active judicial duties, Latchman maintains prominent professional ties within commonwealth judicial circles. She is a fellow of the Commonwealth Judicial Education Institute, and holds membership in both the Commonwealth Magistrates and Judges Association and the Judicial Education Institute of Guyana.

Alongside the long-delayed announcement of Latchman’s appointment, the JSC also revealed that six new judicial officers have been appointed to the rank of magistrate. The new appointees are Ocelisa Marks, Nikkisha Logan, Jimelle Joseph, Shareefah Parks, Taneisha Saygon and Caressa Henry. All six are scheduled to take their oaths of office before Guyana’s Prime Minister Mark Phillips on July 15, 2026, the day following the public announcement of the appointments.

Guyanese authorities have issued a murder warrant for Satrohan “Depo” Rajkumar, a former associate of the country’s Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed, in connection with the 2021 fatal shooting of gold miner Ricardo “Paper Shorts” Fagundes, law enforcement officials confirmed Wednesday. The killing took place outside Georgetown’s popular Palm Court venue on Main Street in March 2021, and a renewed investigation into the high-profile case has now unearthed new developments that have sent shockwaves through Guyana’s political landscape.

Three other associates connected to Mohamed’s now-defunct motor racing venture Team Mohameds – Udoh Kanu, used car dealer Amarnauth Ramsook, and security officer Mark Richmond – have each been granted bail set at 1 million Guyanese dollars as the probe continues. Investigators have confirmed that the getaway vehicle used by the attackers was later discovered burned out along the Linden-Soesdyke Highway, and the registered owner of the car has since passed away.

Mohamed, whose We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) party secured 13 seats in last September’s general and regional elections to cement his position as Guyana’s Opposition Leader, has launched fierce public pushback against the renewed investigation, claiming the probe is a politically motivated plot to tarnish his name. The allegations come after Mohamed publicly exposed a large-scale agricultural development owned by sitting President Irfaan Ali along the Linden-Soesdyke Highway.

“The People’s Progressive Party has never faced a determined, vocal Opposition Leader in recent history. That is why they have waged a relentless campaign to bring me down ever since I entered mainstream politics,” Mohamed wrote in a post on his official Facebook page linked to Team Mohameds.

The opposition leader also claimed that two of his former innocent employees were detained for six days as part of what he called a deliberate manipulation of Guyana’s judicial system and a blatant violation of the men’s constitutionally protected rights. Already wanted by United States authorities on allegations of unrelated financial crimes, Mohamed further claimed that the deceased getaway car owner, Shemroy Stewart, was a known contracted killer for Shaheed “Roger” Khan – a drug kingpin who was convicted and imprisoned in the U.S. years ago on cocaine trafficking charges. Mohamed has denied ever having any personal or professional connection to Stewart. He also alleged that senior police officials have approached multiple inmates in Guyanese prisons offering incentives to issue false statements that would directly tie him to Fagundes’ murder.

For his part, Khan broke his silence on the case Monday, stating that Fagundes – whom Khan described as his “son” – was killed in an attack that was actually meant for him. Khan repeated longstanding claims that he previously helped prevent the collapse of the former Bharrat Jagdeo administration, and accused police of intentionally dragging their feet in the initial response to the 2021 shooting, a claim he first made publicly weeks after the killing.

A brewing constitutional dispute over three Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) seats aligned with the former APNU+AFC coalition has intensified, with former National Assembly Speaker Ralph Ramkarran calling for the commissioners’ immediate resignation following the 2025 general and regional elections. In his weekly Conversation Tree column published Saturday, Ramkarran argued that the three commissioners – Desmond Trotman, Vincent Alexander, and Charles Corbin – appointed on the recommendation of a previous opposition leader no longer hold any moral or legitimate claim to their posts after the 2025 vote reshaped Guyana’s political opposition landscape.

The 2025 general election installed We Invest in Nationhood (WIN), a new 16-seat opposition party founded by Azruddin Mohamed and his father Nazar “Shell” Mohamed, as the official main opposition, replacing the 12-seat APNU bloc that originally backed the three sitting commissioners. Ramkarran, a senior counsel and former executive member of the ruling People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC), noted that while the principle that an opposition leader should be able to recommend their own representatives to the election commission is widely undisputed, Guyana’s constitution contains no clear framework for removing sitting commissioners outside of cases of death, incapacity, misconduct findings by a tribunal, or voluntary resignation. The three incumbents have so far refused to step down, creating an immediate deadlock.

The standoff has been further complicated by long-running political tensions between the PPPC administration and WIN. The Mohameds, once close allies of President Irfaan Ali and prominent PPPC supporters, broke ranks to form WIN in 2024 after the United States imposed sanctions on them over alleged financial crimes tied to their gold trading operations. Shortly after the sanctions were announced, the Guyanese government revoked the pair’s foreign exchange dealer licenses and gold sector operating permits, and forced all domestic commercial banks to close their company accounts. Relations deteriorated further when WIN contested the 2025 general elections to become the largest opposition bloc.

Ramkarran warned that the PPPC’s deep-seated hostility toward WIN will likely block any path to constitutional amendment to resolve the vacancy issue. “The government’s hostility to WIN is so deep-seated that it might prefer to have the three Commissioners retain their positions rather than amend the Constitution to have the three Commissioners unseated,” he wrote. Well-placed government sources confirmed that Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed’s formal request to President Ali to appoint three new nominees – Roysdale Forde, Damien Da Silva, and Siand Dhurjon – to replace the sitting commissioners has been rejected on the grounds that no official vacancies exist on the commission.

According to Ramkarran, the only remaining path for WIN to resolve the deadlock is to bring the dispute before Guyana’s judiciary. The former speaker, who specializes in constitutional and electoral law, expressed cautious optimism that courts would rule in WIN’s favor. He argued that under Article 161(3) of Guyana’s constitution, GECOM commissioners nominated by the opposition leader are required to hold the confidence of the sitting opposition leader. Since Mohamed has formally submitted new nominations, the court could find that the incumbents no longer hold that confidence and could even rule their continued occupation of the seats unlawful. At the same time, Ramkarran cautioned that the absence of explicit constitutional language for removal may lead courts to stop short of formally declaring the seats vacant, prolonging the impasse.

The ongoing stalemate already threatens to derail planned 2026 local government elections, sources familiar with GECOM operations confirmed. Retired Justice Claudette Singh, GECOM’s chair, has not convened a full commission meeting for months. While technical staff have drafted and updated a detailed workplan for the upcoming local polls, the inability of the commission to convene and make formal decisions puts the timeline for the elections at serious risk.

The sitting APNU-aligned commissioners have echoed the government’s position, stating that no vacancy exists and the deadlock can only be resolved either by a court ruling or a formal constitutional amendment. Ramkarran noted that prior to the 1992 democratic transition, Guyana’s electoral laws explicitly required the entire election commission to resign within three months of a general and regional election, a provision that was not carried forward into the current constitutional framework.

As public debate continues to swirl around President Irfaan Ali’s technology-focused agricultural project along the Linden-Soesdyke Highway, Guyana’s main opposition bloc A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) has tabled a legislative proposal to amend the country’s Integrity Act, mandating public release of asset declaration summaries for the President, cabinet ministers and other senior public officials.

In a formal letter submitted to Clerk of the National Assembly Sherlock Isaacs alongside the draft bill, APNU parliamentary leader Dr. Terrence Campbell outlined that the proposed reform is designed to reinforce transparency, accountability and public trust in government. The amendment would require the Integrity Commission to publish summaries of statutory asset declarations held by top elected and executive officeholders, while retaining confidentiality for sensitive information that does not require public disclosure. Under the plan, these summaries would be officially circulated via the country’s Official Gazette.

Campbell argued that any lawmaker or political party that rejects the broad framework of the bill would send a clear signal they have something to conceal from the Guyanese public. “I want the public to know that anybody who does not support this generally — there might be some changes that they may require — but anybody in Parliament, any parliamentarian, any party that does not support this, has something to hide,” Campbell stated in a public address accompanying the bill.

Drawing on a regional precedent, Campbell noted that Jamaica’s Integrity Commission already publishes asset declaration summaries for the country’s Prime Minister and Opposition Leader, and proposed extending the same level of transparency to a broad range of senior positions across Guyana’s public sector. The bill would require public summaries for positions including parliamentary secretaries, permanent secretaries, the commissioners of Land Surveys, Geology and Mines, and Forestry, the Commissioner of Police, Deputy Commissioner of Police, chairs and managing directors of state agencies and state-owned corporations, as well as municipal mayors and deputy mayors.

If the National Assembly declines to convene to debate the proposed amendment, Campbell has called on President Ali and leaders of all parliamentary parties to set an immediate example by voluntarily publishing their full 2025 asset declarations. The opposition leader also offered to lead by example, confirming he would release his own complete asset declaration first thing Monday morning if a cross-party agreement to do so is reached.

The legislative push comes amid ongoing public uncertainty over the size and financing of President Ali’s Long Creek farm project. Campbell acknowledged that he had prior knowledge of the President’s agricultural venture, but had no idea it spanned as much as 150 acres — a figure first claimed by Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed. President Ali has only stated the holding is smaller than 75 acres, refusing to release an exact acreage, and no independent, documented verification of the property’s size has been made public to date.

President Ali has thus far rejected calls to release public financial records for his business, which includes poultry and livestock operations. He has maintained that he funded the farm through commercial bank lending, that all required asset disclosures have been submitted to the Integrity Commission, and that he has never used his presidential authority to secure improper favors or preferential treatment for the venture. Campbell also confirmed that he has no knowledge of the Integrity Commission launching a formal investigation into the assets submitted by senior officeholders to date.