{"id":24548,"date":"2024-11-28T22:48:55","date_gmt":"2024-11-28T22:48:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/?p=24548"},"modified":"2024-11-28T22:48:57","modified_gmt":"2024-11-28T22:48:57","slug":"judge-raps-cathy-hughes-in-lowlife-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/judge-raps-cathy-hughes-in-lowlife-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge raps Cathy Hughes in \u201clowlife\u201d trial"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n\n

…says claimant must have understand risk of life under scrutiny in bringing defamation case<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ALLIANCE For Change senior member, Catherine Hughes, cannot escape the examination of her public life and that must have been one of the risks she accepted when bringing the defamation case over the now well-known \u201clow life\u201d comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was the position expressed by presiding judge Priscilla Chandra-Hanif on Thursday at the Demerara High Court, who underscored that the case has political implications and will carry a responsibility of understanding Cathy Hughes\u2019 public image as the law requires for defamation matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The defence, represented by attorney Sanjeev Datadin, was set to introduce its witness, Robin Singh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before Singh took the stand, the court dealt with procedural matters sparked by attorney Nigel Hughes\u2019 objections to elements of Singh\u2019s testimony submitted to the court beforehand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Datadin challenged Hughes\u2019 objections to Singh\u2019s statement as baseless, urging the Court to see that Cathy Hughes had multiple opportunities to refute things mentioned in Singh\u2019s testimony as all of the content are in the public record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Datadin drew the Court\u2019s attention to Cathy Hughes\u2019 admission that she did recognize herself as a minister of the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From that admission, Datadin continued, it should also be accepted that actions taken by Hughes in her public life would not only be done by her personally but also done by the government of which she was a part.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Datadin further drew the court\u2019s attention to public position of then-APNU+AFC minister Dominic Gaskin who had distanced himself from the utterances of the APNU+AFC in its attempt to stall the declaration of the 2020 general and regional elections which eventually saw the People\u2019s Progressive Party\/Civic (PPP\/C) emerging victorious despite previous false declarations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The court ruled that Singh\u2019s evidence is permissible to the extent that he can claim the actions of the claimant to be false. It would be for the court, however, to determine what is fact based on the things proven in the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Justice Chandra-Hanif, delivering her ruling within the trial, said in bringing the case to conclusion, a two-stage test will be used.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first part of the test will look at the words themselves and determine whether they were defamatory in the context. If the court finds that the words were defamatory, it would then be asked how the damages can be quantified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To reach this conclusion, Justice Chandra-Hanif said, the court must conduct a forensic public audit of the reputation of Cathy Hughes as a public political figure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not an ordinary defamation case, the judge said, adding that the case carries its own legal facts which must be assessed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Important to the case, according to Justice Chandra-Hanif, will be the standard society held Cathy Hughes in when the words were spoken against her. After determining that, the court will assess the veracity and accuracy of her reputation and the statements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All matters in the public domain, the court underscored, can legitimately be taken into account in the assessment of the character of this public political figure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The claimant, the court continued, especially considering her attorney must have known coming into the trial that her entire character would be established to determine if there is defamation, and if there was, what was the quantum of the damage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is the risk that is understood, Justice Chandra-Hanif belaboured, adding that one cannot come to the trial saying they do not want certain things to be known to the public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her statement of claim, Mrs Hughes is seeking over $50 million in damages from Jagdeo for remarks he made during a press conference on November 23, 2023, where he referred to her as a “lowlife.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jagdeo, who serves as General Secretary of the People\u2019s Progressive Party (PPP), typically holds press conferences every Thursday to address various issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trial continues on December 19, 2024, when Singh will continue testifying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…says claimant must have understand risk of life under scrutiny in bringing defamation case ALLIANCE For Change senior member, Catherine Hughes, cannot escape the examination of her public life and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":24545,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[350,351],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24548"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24549,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24548\/revisions\/24549"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}