Christie Justus Law — Research Papers · CJL-WP 2026/02
Naomi Eglantine Christie · LL.B. (Distinction) · L.E.C. (Honours) · LL.M., New York University, 2015 — International Legal Studies · Attorney-at-Law, admitted to the Bar of Guyana, October 2013, and to the Bar of Grenada, 2014.
September 2026 · 31 pages · 124 footnotes · PDF
Guyana's Cybercrime Act 2018 was enacted after a two-year passage dominated by objection to a sedition clause that was excised on the night the Bill passed. This paper asks whether the Act that survived strikes a defensible balance between the suppression of the harms it was written to suppress and the constitutional guarantee of expression. It argues that the Act contains two architectures stitched together. The first, in sections 3 to 13, is a computer-misuse core drafted around the integrity of systems and data on the pattern of the Convention on Cybercrime; it is technically sound. The second, in sections 14 to 19, is a set of content and conduct offences drafted around harm to persons and to the polity, and there the rights balance is struck unevenly. Section 16, the intimate-image offence, is consent-based, fills a real gap in Guyanese law and survives the de Freitas proportionality test. Sections 18 and 19 are drawn broadly enough to attract the vagueness objection the Caribbean Court of Justice sustained in McEwan and to collide with the principle in Hector that those in public office must remain open to criticism. Each section is read from the Gazette text against the Constitution, the treaty it follows, and the statutes of Jamaica and the United Kingdom. A narrowing construction of sections 18 and 19 is available now and the courts should adopt it; targeted amendment is a better course than the promised repeal. Part III's investigative powers presuppose safeguards the Data Protection Act 2023 was written to supply, and that Act has not been commenced.
Keywords: cybercrime; Guyana; freedom of expression; intimate images; vagueness; proportionality; Convention on Cybercrime; data protection
Naomi Eglantine Christie · LL.B. (Distinction) · L.E.C. (Honours) · LL.M., New York University, 2015 — International Legal Studies · Attorney-at-Law, admitted to the Bar of Guyana, October 2013, and to the Bar of Grenada, 2014. Correspondence: naomi@christiejustuslaw.com.
© 2026 Naomi Eglantine Christie. This paper may be downloaded, printed and circulated without charge for personal, academic and teaching use, with attribution. It states the law as the author understands it at the date on the cover; it is not legal advice to any person. Pending matters are described as pending.