Attorney-General Basil Williams says acting Chancellor Carl Singh is fine-tuning the rules for the Family Court so that they can be taken to the National Assembly for approval.
“This Family Court issue lies entirely within the bosom of the Chancellor of the Judiciary,” he told a press conference on Wednesday, while noting that his office has already sent proposals to the Ministry of Finance for the operationalising of the court.
As regards claims made by his predecessor Anil Nandlall that the government is to be blamed for the non-operationalising of the Family Court, Williams said he would not be responding to the former Attorney-General.
“He appears to wake up every morning and just get some brain wave to call in the media to say something and I am not going to be responding to him,” Williams said, while pointing out that when he was shadow Attorney-General he was very outspoken on the then government’s failure to operationalise the Family Court.
“I don’t know how the new government could be blamed for not operationalising the Family Court, which they [the PPP] failed to do in all those years that they had been in government,” he pointed out.
In June, Justice Singh had told reporters at the opening of a training seminar for legal practitioners on the Family Court Rules (Proceedings and Procedure) that the court may finally be operational in as little as a month.
The Family Court, which is to be a division of the High Court, will deal with family issues such as cases of adoption, neglect, child maintenance, custody and domestic violence.
Cabinet cleared the way for the Family Court in 2008 and subsequent budgetary allocations were made for the project.
