The Cayenne judicial court is awaiting its public prosecutor. Having left Guyana at the end of May to become liaison magistrate in Italy, Yves Le Clair has still not been replaced. Ditto for the president of the judicial court Mahrez Abassi, appointed in July to the Paris Court of Appeal. As for the director of registry services, his position has been vacant for 18 months.
The three most important positions in a judicial court “vacant at the same time”: the situation is “unprecedented”, warns the Guyana bar. “This would happen in Créteil or Marseille, it would not be accepted. However, statistically, judicial activity and criminal acts are more important in Guyana, in proportion to the population,” underlines Me Christine Charlot, President of the Bar Association.
Gathered in an extraordinary general meeting at the beginning of October, the lawyers voted on a motion to alert the Superior Council of the Judiciary (CSM), the National Bar Council and the Minister of Justice Didier Migaud.
Made up of around forty magistrates divided between the court of appeal and the judicial tribunal, the jurisdiction of Guyana must manage 80% of criminal cases, compared to 20% on average in France. The Amazonian territory of 300,000 inhabitants faces “700 armed robberies every year”, according to Attorney General Joël Sollier. An incessant flow to absorb.
“Pilot on the plane”
“Justice is not at a standstill, but there is no defined penal policy in the absence of a prosecutor, therefore no harmony in decisions and in the handling of cases,” deplores Me Charlot who believes that Guyana must “have a pilot on the plane”.
Despite this situation, the prosecution assures that “no break is to be deplored in the monitoring of cases”. Its office maintained a sustained pace “on all priority areas in Guyana: armed robbery, gold panning, narcotics,” says Gisèle Auguste, the interim prosecutor, who manages 14 prosecutors. “The hearings are held, the judgments are rendered and the police are directed,” adds the attorney general.
But the operation is “not optimal”, recognizes the senior magistrate. “When you carry out temporary duties, you are hesitant or even impossible to make decisions in the medium or long term, you are condemned to short-termism,” he believes.
Contacted, the Ministry of Justice emphasizes that “the Minister of Justice has asked his services that these vacancies prior to his arrival be filled as soon as possible”. The Superior Council of the Judiciary, which initiated the appointment of the president of the judicial court, ensures “that the appointment process is well underway”. But the different recruitment circuits make these appointments complex, which require finding a consensus between several entities.
For the position of director of court registries, “there were 12 calls for applications, without result”, specifies the Ministry of Justice, which comes up against the lack of attractiveness of the Guyanese judicial system in this position. A recurring situation. In October 2022, the magistrates of Guyana decreed a “dead justice” week to alert the Chancellery to the lack of human resources.
Prosecutor Yves Le Clair then estimated the number of “judgments awaiting execution” at 6,000. This stock has been “reduced to 1,600”, according to the Attorney General Joël Sollier, and will be “liquidated by the end of the year”, he assures, while deploring “far too many files at the 'education'.
