The National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) Bill was last night formally sent to a special select parliamentary committee.
Attorney General Anil Nandlall made the request for the deferral ahead of the second reading of the bill, which seeks to establish a national intelligence agency. “I ask Your Honour’s leave to send this bill to a special select committee where that committee will determine how they will proceed with the bill,” he said in his request to Speaker Manzoor Nadir.
Last month, the government through Nandlall as Minister of Legal Affairs introduced the bill to the National Assembly with the intention of passing it through Parliament and into law. However, with public outcry coming from the Guyana Bar Association, the APNU-AFC, civil society and others, President Irfaan Ali ordered further consultation on the bill.
The proposed National Intelligence and Security Agency is expected to be responsible for collecting data, processing it from many sources and providing such data, reports and advising the President on matters of national security. It would also be tasked with the responsibility to do investigations on matters relating to national security.
The President will choose the director of the agency, who can be from the GDF, the GPF or a civilian. The director can serve no less than three years, and not more than five, can qualify for reappointment.
APNU-AFC Member of Parliament and Shadow Minister of Legal Affairs Roysdale Forde had shared the view that it was never the government’s decision to send the bill to the special select committee.
“While there is, in principle, the need for the country to have the services that an intelligence agency can provide, I don’t believe that we did a good job capturing the different elements and the weigh against the possible risk of abuse and high-handed operation,” Forde had said.
“The bill, I believe, is very weak on oversight. It is void of any serious parliamentary oversight over the operation of the agency. The bill provides no sufficient protection against the agency [invading]… on the fundamental rights of the Guyanese people; the right to privacy, the right of the Guyanese people to have their private information not available to the agency, the ability to have investigations, complaints done effectively.”
From a law perspective, Forde added, the bill also breaches the confidentiality of the client to lawyer relation by breaching the lines of communications and forcing information to the agency that would work against the client.
Nandlall has maintained that the agency is nothing new but simply brings intelligence gathering under one umbrella.
