By Stabroek News

Copyright stabroeknews

Dear Editor,

I saw a post from Dr. Terrence Campbell, APNU incoming Member of Parliament and my first response to him is he needs to educate himself on the role of a practicing attorney in any society. Mr. Darren Wade is a practicing attorney and the residents of this nation will expect no less than the following from him: 1) He will defend clients who are accused to ensure that the legal system is working; 2) He will defend the accused since anyone accused has the right to a fair process; and 3) He will be a party to a process that allows for a fair conviction after rigorous legal process which as a collective contributes to the entire legal system being stronger.

In many jurisdictions, lawyers like Mr. Darren Wade, operate under a “cab rank” rule—they must take the case that comes to them, just as a taxi must pick up the next passenger. This prevents “convenience lawyering,” where only the popular or the obviously innocent get a defense, and ensures that every person, no matter how heinous their alleged crime, has access to legal representation. So can Dr. Campbell spare us the intellectual dishonesty? Please!

Dr. Campbell’s post on Facebook of October 12, 2025, exposes his own intellectual bankruptcy and the poverty of his argument. Instead of engaging with the substance of the Comrade’s critique—a critique he admitted was public, early, and prescient—he resorted to the cheapest and most cowardly tactic in politics: attacking the messenger because he cannot rebut the message. Let’s dismantle this pathetic excuse for an argument made by Dr. Campbell.

He committed a classic ad hominem circumstantial fallacy. He believe that revealing a legal relationship between an attorney and his client, which he has every right to represent, automatically invalidates every single word Comrade Darren Wade said. By this infantile logic, no attorney who earns a paycheck from any entity can ever have a valid, principled opinion about them. Mr. Nigel Hughes represented Mr. Nigel Dharamllal on some very serious rape allegations, so did that made Mr. Nigel Hughes into a PPP stooge? This is not how adults debate. The truth or falsehood of the Comrade’s warnings—about the failure of negotiations, the dire consequences for the party—stands entirely separate from their source of income. Dr. Campbell offered no counter-argument to their points because he has none, so he reverted to mud.

Dr. Campbell writes “Imagine my shock”. The only shocking thing here is his feigned naiveté. In the real world, people have jobs. Party members, analysts, and commentators often have professional affiliations. Dr. Campbell discovered a legal relationship and, like a child who has found a magician’s secret, he thinks he has uncovered a scandal. He hasn’t. He uncovered a reality of modern life, which he is now weaponizing to avoid a substantive discussion.

Dr. Campbell bemoaned the “hundreds or thousands impacted by his/her comments without knowledge.” This is pure, unadulterated superciliousness. Dr. Campbell thinks the public is a flock of simpletons, incapable of listening to an argument and judging its merits for themselves just because he says so? He believes they are mere puppets, whose opinions would be reversed if only they saw the puppet master’s strings. The public is smarter than Dr. Campbell thinks. They can recognize a valid warning, and they can also recognize a cheap, deflective smear when they see one. I read Darren Wade’s comments of how he cleared this legal relationship with his political leader and got a “no objection” from his political leadership. That reflects political class on the part of Mr. Darren Wade.

The central question remains: Did Dr. Campbell disprove Mr. Darren Wade’s claims about APNU’s failed negotiations? Did he, Dr. Campbell, provide a compelling reason why surrender to WIN was the wrong characterization? No. He dodged it all. His entire post is a confession that he could not win on the merits of the argument, so he must instead sling mud.

In conclusion, Dr. Campbell’s attempt to paint this Mr. Darren Wade as a biased pawn is a transparent act of political sabotage against a credible critic and exposes that Dr. Campbell lacks political pedigree. It is the strategy of a weak actor that fears internal accountability. He is not defending APNU; he is making it a party that silences its best thinkers with cowardly attacks, and that is a far greater betrayal than any perceived paycheck from the WIN Team to their attorney, who happens to be a PNC Member.

Khemraj Harryram