{"id":30690,"date":"2026-07-01T18:52:04","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T22:52:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/?p=30690"},"modified":"2026-07-01T18:52:04","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T22:52:04","slug":"socu-granted-judgement-against-magistrate-dylon-bess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/socu-granted-judgement-against-magistrate-dylon-bess\/","title":{"rendered":"Socu granted judgement against Magistrate Dylon Bess"},"content":{"rendered":"
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–High court quashes<\/u><\/strong> his<\/u><\/strong> decision to dismiss money laundering <\/u><\/strong>charges, <\/u><\/strong>orders him to pay $50,000 costs to socu<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Monday June 29, 2026, the Honourable Acting Chief Justice, Navindra Singh<\/strong>, granted judicial review relief in favour of the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU),<\/strong> quashing the decision of Magistrate Dylon Bess,<\/strong> to dismiss four (4) counts of Money Laundering charges for \u2018want of prosecution\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In July 2024, SOCU<\/strong> instituted four (4) counts of criminal charges against Ian Jacobis, Ashiana Salamalay, Shameena Ahmad, and Shafee Ahmad (hereinafter referred to as \u201cSOCU matters\u201d<\/strong><\/em>) for the offence of money laundering in contravention of section 3(1)(b) <\/em><\/strong>of the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Act, Cap. 10:11.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In February 2026, the SOCU<\/strong> matters were reassigned to Magistrate Dylon Bess <\/strong>and were adjourned to April 14, 2026, for ruling on a preliminary point. On April 14, 2026, SOCU<\/strong> Prosecutors were informed by the clerk of the Diamond Magistrate’s Court that Magistrate Bess had proceeded on special leave following his father’s death and that the SOCU<\/strong> matters would be given a new date. On April 20, 2026, SOCU<\/strong> Prosecutors were informed by the Court-assigned clerk that the SOCU<\/strong> matters were adjourned to June 4, 2026<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On May 6, 2026, Magistrate Dylon Bess <\/strong>dismissed the SOCU<\/strong> matters for \u2018want of prosecution<\/em>,\u2019 even though the case jackets recorded that the SOCU<\/strong> matters were adjourned to June 4, 2026 and after the fact that the Court-appointed Clerk had communicated and\/or informed the Prosecution that SOCU<\/strong> matters were adjourned to June 4, 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Magistrate Dylon Bess<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

SOCU<\/strong> filed Judicial Review proceedings in the High Court seeking several declarations, and an order of certiorari, quashing the decision of Magistrate Dylon Bess,<\/strong> to dismiss the four (4) SOCU<\/strong> matters for want of prosecution. SOCU<\/strong> contended that the Learned Magistrate’s decision was improper, arbitrary and unfair, unreasonable and irrational, capricious and irregular, as it was made in the absence of, and without the knowledge of, and was done without first hearing from the Prosecution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In those proceedings, Magistrate Bess <\/strong>recounted that he asked Defence counsel, Ms Latchmie Rahamat, to inform the Prosecution that the SOCU<\/strong> matters were set for hearing on May 6, 2026. Ms Rahamat then applied for the SOCU<\/strong> matters to be dismissed for want of prosecution<\/em> after informing the Court that despite repeated calls to SOCU<\/strong> prosecutors, SOCU<\/strong> seemed uninterested or had abandoned the SOCU<\/strong> matters. Consequently, Magistrate Bess dismissed the SOCU<\/strong> matters for want of prosecution. Interestingly, SOCU<\/strong> prosecutors were never contacted, informed, or notified by Defence counsel, Ms Latchmie Rahamat, that the SOCU<\/strong> matters were fixed, set, adjourned or being heard on May 6, 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chief Justice Singh highlighted that, (i) the adjournment in April,2026 was not for the purpose of taking evidence or active prosecution since the SOCU<\/strong> matters were adjourned for the Magistrate to review prior pre-trial rulings which was not caused by prosecutorial default; (ii) the Magistrate did not sit in April, 2026, and the prosecution did not fail to attend or fail to proceed on that date; and (iii) the prosecution being told by the court office that the new date was June 4th may well have resulted from reliance on information communicated by the court itself rather than neglect or abandonment of the prosecution.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/em>Chief Justice Singh in ruling reasoned that \u2018a dismissal for want of prosecution in May 2026 was problematic since a dismissal for want of prosecution generally presupposes some culpable failure by the prosecution to diligently pursue the matter and if the prosecution was genuinely informed by the court office that the matter was adjourned to June 4th, then the absence on May 6th was arguably induced by the court administration itself.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In granting relief, the High Court held that \u2018a<\/em> court should ordinarily be slow to penalise a party for relying on information provided by court staff, especially where the communication relates to an adjourned date as the overriding consideration is fairness<\/em>.\u2019 The Court went on to say that \u2018fairness would require a Magistrate to inquire into the reason for the prosecution\u2019s absence; to ascertain whether notice of May 6th was properly given; to determine whether the prosecution was aware of the May 6th date; and consider whether the absence reflected genuine neglect or merely administrative confusion. <\/em>Hence, the Court found that an immediate dismissal without such inquiry was drastic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hence, Magistrate Dylon Bess dismissal was accordingly quashed, and he was ordered to pay costs in the sum of $50,000.00 to SOCU for wrongfully dismissing the cases.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The head of the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU<\/strong>), Deputy Commissioner Fazil Karimbaksh emphasised that it is unfortunate that SOCU<\/strong> had to resort to court action again against Magistrate Dylon Bess, since this is the second subsequent judicial review proceedings being brought against Magistrate Dylon Bess by SOCU<\/strong> in recent months and the High Court is ruling against his decisions, which shows clearly that he is not complying with the statuary requirements as a Magistrate. Since Magistrates should not act illegally, irrationally, arbitrarily and exercising their discretion wrongly in law, especially when justice is involved, Magistrates are creatures of statue and are bounded to comply with statutes when exercising their discretion and statuary duties in the administration of Justice. The Deputy Commissioner further lamented that it\u2019s disgusting and unfair that his agency SOCU <\/strong>has to be resorting to court action regularly against Magistrates and having their decisions being overturned by a higher court because of failure to comply with the laws they are appointed to adjudicate on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU<\/strong>) was represented by Attorneys-at-Law and Prosecutors, Mr. David Brathwaite and Mr. Darin Chan, Magistrate Dylon Bess was represented by State Counsel from the Attorney General\u2019s Chambers, while the Respondents were represented by Defence Counsel, Ms. Latchmie Rahamat and Mr. Naresh Poonai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

–High court quashes his decision to dismiss money laundering charges, orders him to pay $50,000 costs to socu On Monday June 29, 2026, the Honourable Acting Chief Justice, Navindra Singh,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30691,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[467,350],"tags":[488,370,412,405,1081],"class_list":["post-30690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime-and-security","category-news","tag-488","tag-guyana","tag-ncn-guyana","tag-ncn-news","tag-socu"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30690","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30690"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30693,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30690\/revisions\/30693"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}