There is absolutely no legal authority conferred on the Magistrate’s Court to order the Guyana Police Force to serve a Defendant’s Summons outside of Guyana. So says Opposition Member of Parliament, Roysdale Forde S.C.
The Parliamentarian’s statement comes days after a cop left Guyana to serve summons on Opposition-aligned activist, Rickford Burke, who is also the head of a US-based group heavily critical of the Guyana Government.
Forde, in a statement on Saturday, said that the actions by the Guyana Police Force (GPF) “have sent shockwaves through the very fabric of our nation’s democratic principles.”
He noted that the very actions appear to constitute “transnational repression”.
But the Guyana Police Force did not seem to think so when it issued a statement earlier this week. It stated that it was the Magistrate who ordered that the ‘defendant summons’ be prepared and served on Rickford Burke to attend the Vigilance Magistrate’s court on the 28th day of March 2024.
As such, pursuant to the order of the Court, two (2) defendant summons were subsequently prepared and on the 13th day of December, 2023, an Officer of the Guyana Police Force, ASP Rodwell Sarabo left Guyana and travelled to the United States of America with both defendant summons in his possession.
On December 16, 2023, ASP Rodwell Sarabo met with Mark Wesserman, a Process Server based in the United States of America and they served both defendant summons on Rickford Burke at his home address at Maple Street, Brooklyn, New York. Both defendant summons were read to Rickford Burke and he said he understood.
But Forde said the jurisdictional extent of the Courts of Guyana and the Guyana Police Force’s authority to act in any manner is defined by the geographical limit of Guyana, unless specifically and expressly conferred by law.
“Therefore, the conduct of the Guyana Police Force is utterly unconstitutional, void and of no legal validity,” the Senior Counsel said.
