Jul 10, 2026 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

(Kaieteur News) I must confess to being more than a little surprised by the quantum of compensation that has been awarded in some libel cases in Guyana. On more than one occasion, I have found myself asking, “Can a person’s reputation really be injured to the extent that it deserves compensation running into millions of dollars?

That question naturally leads to another. How does a court determine how much of a person’s reputation has actually been damaged? Unlike a broken arm or a damaged vehicle, reputation cannot be measured with a ruler or assessed by a medical examination or by cost of replacement of parts. It is invisible. And people rarely announce that they now think less of someone because of something they have read.