Media personality Gordon Moseley has lost a defamation suit against the Guyana Times newspaper and its columnist Dr Leslie Ramsammy, with the High Court ordering him to pay $1 million in costs.
Moseley had sued the newspaper and its ‘Ramsammy’s Ruminations’ columnist over the publication of a piece regarding the controversies of the March 2020 General and Regional Elections.
Ramsammy submitted to the court that the claimant’s reporting of events and his comments were biased in favour of the APNU/AFC coalition, more particularly, in advancing that the fraudulent results that the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) was attempting to declare, were in fact accurate and the APNU/ AFC coalition had won the Elections.
Ramsammy, through his lawyers, argued that this was his “honest opinion”.
The court said it finds that the publication is capable of being defamatory in nature but considered the defence of “fair comment” as pleaded in light of Ramsammy’s contentions.
After so doing, the court found the publication complained of by the claimant a “fair comment”.
“It is an opinion expressed by the FND [First Named Defendant] that he honestly held at the time of the publication of the commentary by the defendants,” the court judgement outlined.
“In the circumstances, the Claim is dismissed in its entirety against the Defendants.”
The Court has awarded costs in the sum of $500,000.00 to each defendant. Costs are to be paid on or before November 30, 2023.
Guyana Times was represented by Attorneys Devindra Kissoon and Abhimanyu Dev while Ramsammy was represented by Attorneys C. V. Satram and Ron Motilall.
The matter was presided over by Justice Navindra Singh.
