Caribbean & International Research Centre

What Article 154A does

Every person is entitled to the human rights in the treaties set out in the Fourth Schedule to which Guyana has acceded, and those rights are to be upheld by the executive, the legislature, the judiciary and all organs of Government — and, where applicable, by natural and legal persons.

It expressly does not include the fundamental rights already in the Constitution. It sits alongside them.

The Fourth Schedule treaties

Convention on the Rights of the Child · CEDAW · CERD · Convention Against Torture · ICESCR · ICCPR · Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women.

Check the current Schedule against the consolidated Constitution before pleading — it has been amended.

The enforcement problem

Article 154A(4) says a person alleging breach may apply to the Human Rights Commission for redress. In its 2015 reply to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Guyana stated that four of the five constitutional Rights Commissions were functioning and that it planned to establish the Human Rights Commission once a Chairperson was named.

Verify the position today. If the Commission remains unconstituted, argue that its non-establishment is itself a breach of the Article 2(3) ICCPR right to an effective remedy — rather than allowing it to defeat standing.

Divestment requires a supermajority

The State may limit or divest itself of an obligation under a Fourth Schedule treaty only if two thirds of the elected members of the National Assembly vote for it. Worth knowing: these obligations cannot be quietly walked back.

Separately, in interpreting the fundamental rights provisions a court must pay due regard to international law and to conventions bearing on human rights.

Start with the statute, not the case

Find the governing Act first and read the actual section. Most student answers go wrong because they argued a case without checking whether the provision it turned on has since been amended or repealed.

Work down the court hierarchy

For a CARICOM state that has accepted its appellate jurisdiction, the CCJ binds. Where the Privy Council remains final, JCPC binds. Then your own Court of Appeal, then the High Court.

A Jamaican Court of Appeal decision is persuasive in Guyana, never binding. Say so expressly in your answer — examiners look for it.

Use England carefully

English authority is persuasive across the Commonwealth Caribbean and often excellent. But check whether the local statute departs from the English one, and whether a written constitution changes the analysis. It very often does.

Check the case is still good law

There is no free Caribbean citator — no Shepard's, no KeyCite. So do it by hand: search the case name in the CCJ and Court of Appeal databases and see who has cited it since.

This is the single most common failure in student work, and the one that would be negligence in practice.

Cite properly

Give the neutral citation where one exists — [2021] CCJ 4 (AJ) — then the law report. Neutral citations are free and permanent; report citations often sit behind a paywall your reader may not have.

Keep a research trail

Note every database searched, the terms used, and the date. Two reasons: you will need to redo it, and in practice a documented search is your evidence that you looked.