GUYANA | High Court Strikes Down Extradition Law Provision in Mohamed Challenge — But Upholds Deportation Framework
Senior Counsel Roysdale Forde and Azurddin Mohamed outside the court.
By WiredJa | February 24, 2026
GEORGETOWN, Guyana, February 24, 2026 - In a ruling that sends ripples through Guyana's legal and political landscape, Acting Chief Justice Navindra A. Singh on Tuesday declared a key provision of the country's extradition law unconstitutional — while simultaneously upholding the broader framework that keeps businessmen Nazar Mohamed and his son Azruddin Mohamed firmly in the crosshairs of a United States extradition request.
The judgment, delivered in the High Court's Constitutional and Administrative Division, represents both a partial victory and a sobering legal reality for the Mohameds. Azruddin Mohamed — also Leader of the We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) party and parliamentary Opposition Leader — and his father had mounted a sweeping constitutional challenge targeting several amendments to the Fugitive Offenders Act. Their central argument: that the legislative changes were unconstitutional, improperly empowering the executive at the expense of judicial independence, and that the extradition process itself was fundamentally flawed.
The Legal Battlefield
The case traces its origins to a formal extradition request transmitted by the United States government to Guyana under the 1931 Extradition Treaty between the United States and Great Britain — a colonial-era instrument that remains the operative legal foundation for extradition between the two countries. Following that request, the Minister of Home Affairs issued an Authority to Proceed under Section 12 of the Fugitive Offenders Act, and on October 31, 2025, both men were arrested and brought before Principal Magistrate Judy Latchman in the Court of Committal.
The Mohameds and their legal team
The Provision That Fell
The court's most significant finding concerned Section 8(3)(B)(b) — a provision that Justice Singh characterised with barely concealed judicial impatience as "legislative contortion." The subsection directed Courts and executive authorities to read into any foreign law or extradition treaty — by necessary implication — a safeguard against onward extradition, even where no such guarantee actually existed in that law or treaty.
In plain terms: Parliament had instructed judges to pretend a protection existed when it did not. The Acting Chief Justice was unsparing in his assessment. The provision, he found, "compels decision-makers to act on a legal fiction" — forcing Courts to assume the existence of an enforceable safeguard that had no basis in law or fact. Since the interpretation of legal instruments is quintessentially a judicial function, Parliament's attempt to direct that interpretation crossed a constitutional line, violating the separation of powers embedded in Article 122A of the Constitution.
The irony, Justice Singh noted, is that the legislature's circuitous approach achieved nothing that a straightforward repeal of the original provision could not have accomplished. Section 8(3)(B)(a) — a non obstante clause — already effectively removed the bar to extradition in cases where no onward extradition safeguard existed. The legislature, he concluded, had "over-complicated" what a simple repeal would have resolved.
What Survived Scrutiny
The Mohameds' broader constitutional arguments fared considerably worse. On the question of whether the amendments improperly vested executive power over a judicial process, Justice Singh found the challenge to be premised on an "untenable interpretation" of the statute. Sections 8(3)(A)(a) and 8(3)(A)(b) — which authorise the Minister to issue an Authority to Proceed where the interest of justice demands it — operate before the judicial committal stage. They do not, the Court held, intrude upon the decisional independence of the Courts.
Similarly, the challenge to Section 8(3)(B)(c) — which provides that complaints about infractions in extradition arrangements lie with the asylum state, not the individual — was rejected. The Court found that the provision addresses breaches of international comity between states, not the individual's right to challenge their detention through domestic legal proceedings. The Mohameds' own persistent resort to the Courts, Justice Singh dryly observed, substantially undermined their claim that judicial remedies had been foreclosed.
The Treaty Question — and a Critical Assurance
At the heart of one significant legal dispute was whether the 1931 Treaty contained any guarantee against onward extradition — that is, whether the United States, having received the Mohameds from Guyana, could then ship them to a third country. The applicants argued the Treaty was silent on this point, making the extradition framework legally deficient.
Justice Singh disagreed, binding himself to a longstanding Court of Appeal precedent that held the 1931 Treaty implicitly prohibits onward extradition, through a reading of Article 7 consistent with United States Supreme Court jurisprudence dating to 1886. Crucially, the Court also noted that the United States government had provided written assurances that the Mohameds would not be extradited to any third state without Guyana's ministerial consent — a diplomatic commitment that rendered much of this argument moot in practical terms.
Wider Implications for Caribbean Extradition Law
Beyond its immediate consequences for the Mohameds, Tuesday's ruling carries significance for how Caribbean courts engage with the intersection of colonial-era treaty law, modern statutory amendments, and constitutional rights. The judgment affirms that parliaments across the region retain broad authority to amend extradition frameworks — but they cannot do so by compelling courts to manufacture legal protections that do not exist. The line between legislative reform and judicial direction, the Court made plain, is one that cannot be crossed without consequence.
For Azruddin Mohamed, whose dual roles as businessman and Opposition Leader have placed this case under intense political scrutiny, the ruling offers a narrow constitutional victory while leaving the extradition machinery intact. Committal proceedings before Magistrate Latchman are expected to resume. The road to Washington, it appears, remains open — even if the legal landscape along it has shifted, however slightly, in the Mohameds' favour.
— WiredJa | Caribbean News and Analysis
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