Attorney General Anil Nandlall SC says a complete review has been done of the Summary Jurisdiction (Offences) Act and an amendment Bill is in draft to be tabled in the National Assembly later this year.
Speaking at the Guyana Bar Association’s Law Week Symposium on Friday, Nandlall addressed a series of law reforms in the works along with administrative improvements but was notably silent on the long-awaited composing of the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) and the process for the confirming of a Chancellor of the Judiciary and a Chief Justice.
Addressing the theme `New Frontiers in Law, Preparing for the Future’, Nandlall told his audience, which included Caribbean Court of Justice judge Winston Anderson, that the Government recognises that with the burgeoning oil sector it must create, with commensurate dispatch, a legal regulatory framework and the accompanying institutional capabilities to “cradle, support and propel these transformative strides”.
He said that in the oil and gas sector there is a new petroleum bill and a slew of tangential legislation touching and concerning the sector relating to insurance, financing, the environment, land and the use of the waterways and port facilities, etc.
The Attorney General did not mention a Petroleum Commission bill. Since it entered office in August of 2020, the government has been promising such a bill to regulate the oil sector but nothing has come. Guyana has been producing oil since December of 2019 without a regulatory commission.
He said that a tremendous amount of legislative changes have to be effected in the financial and commercial sectors. Basic laws such as the Companies Act are over three decades old, he noted.
“Clearly, this is out of sync with current realities. Our financial securities regulatory framework has to be modernised. We have to prepare a strong legislative network to protect our financial system from new and emerging threats such as cybercrimes, enhanced data security penetration, and prepare to treat with issues relating to crypto and bitcoins currency. From one report to which I was privy, these latter activities are already in Guyana”, he stated.
At the next sitting of the National Assembly, he said that the Electronic Communications and Transaction Bill which will formally introduce e-transactions and e-payments across central government and the State apparatus will be tabled. This will allow the easy processing of transactions involving modern methods of communications and payments.
On institutional strengthening, Nandlall said that “Those who manage our legal institutions must necessarily be given the technological, financial, and administrative capabilities to do so. In this regard, we have to continue to invest heavily in acquiring all the modern equipment and apparatus available which will not only allow for the intrinsic management of litigation and case files within the justice system but will also integrate it with important adjunct organsations such as the Guyana Police Force, the Guyana Prison Service, the Social Service and Protection Agency, the Director of Public Prosecutions, and other agencies upon whom the justice system depends for functional support. A fluid interlink between these agencies and the judiciary will aggregate to the strengthening of the justice machinery”.
Noting that a number of new court houses are going up, Nandlall said that he has been told that currently “there is no space to store items levied upon in the enforcement of judgments. This is simply unacceptable. In my respectful view, nothing will cause the law to quicker lose its majesty and the judiciary to be sapped of public confidence than if it cannot enforce its own orders. Government will work with the judiciary to address this deficiency”.
This may have been the appropriate point for Nandlall to mention the JSC and the numerous broken promises by the government to the judiciary and the bar association but Nandlall did not oblige.
The JSC has not been recomposed since 2017 and therefore new judges cannot be appointed. In January this year, Nandlall assured that “long before” the end of the first quarter the key commission would be in place. This is still to happen.
The pressure is also continuing to mount on President Irfaan Ali to move to have confirmed appointments of a Chancellor and Chief Justice, The High Court last week ruled that the President has to act with dispatch on this matter. The CCJ had last year called for these appointments to be made no later than the end of 2022.
The AG said that the agencies that support the judicial system in the machinery of justice must also be suitably equipped to render that support.
“The investigators must therefore be more scientific in their approach and must have the forensic capabilities to do so. The Guyana Forensic Science Laboratory must begin to play its conceptual role. Currently, Government is in the process of furnishing that lab with both the equipment and the forensic skills required. We are importing these skills as they are not available in Guyana”, he said.
He also told the symposium: “We must also have the intellectual security and moral courage to accept when we have a deficiency in skill set and experience and be prepared to look beyond our borders in the recruitment of suitably qualified persons to assist us until we build the requisite capacity. In speaking on the Bill last Monday in the National Assembly which increases our Court of Appeal’s complement of judges from five to nine, I expressed the view that the time is ripe for us to look not only in the Caribbean but the wider Commonwealth and even the United Kingdom, for suitably qualified judicial officers. Our judicial officers must also be equipped with the necessary human resources to ensure that they deliver the quality and type of justice that will be required in a new and modern Guyana”.
The investigative and prosecutorial arm of the State must also be similarly enhanced and so too the prison officers and social and probation workers, Nandlall said.
“In this regard, I have specifically requested to be introduced in the Government’s online scholarship programme, GOAL, a plethora of disciplines in the forensic sciences, paralegal training, criminology, sociology, and psychology and I am pleased to report that many of our police officers and those in the relevant public sector agencies are taking advantage of these new opportunities”, the AG told the gathering.
