The Foreign Judgments (Reciprocal Enforcement Bill) 2023 was on Thursday evening passed in the National Assembly allowing the enforcement of foreign judgments here and judgments from local courts to be enforced in countries that are inscribed in the bill.
According to the Minister of Legal Affairs and Attorney General, Anil Nandlall SC the Bill is another example of the government’s objective of modernizing Guyana’s legal infrastructure. “This bill is part of that menu of modern laws that are so necessary for economic development and investment in particular foreign investment,” he stated in his presentation to the National Assembly.
According to Nandlall, the Bill permits and authorizes judgments and orders emanating from courts in Guyana to be enforced in any jurisdiction to which the Bill applies, and vice versa.
The Bill applies to some sixty countries including every Commonwealth country, every English-speaking Caribbean territory, and other major jurisdictions including the United States and China, he stated. “It would also be noted that the list includes all of Guyana’s important trading partners and investors”, he stated.
Nandlall said that the bill repeals and replaces the current statutory regime with the enforcement and recognition of foreign judgments. He then explained, that recognition means that the foreign judgment is equal to any other judgment emanating from Guyana’s courts, while enforcement means that the foreign judgment can be executed in Guyana because it is recognized as equal to a court in Guyana.
Giving their full support to the bill were PPP/C members of parliament Sonia Parag and Sanjeev Datadin.
However, APNU+AFC MP, Roysdale Forde, SC stated that while he would concede that the bill represents a development and advancement from the existing legislation, “… we are at 2023, in the fastest growing economy in the world but it’s not good enough to simply adopt a country’s legislation” as according to him the bill is similar to Kenya’s reciprocal judgments bill.
According to Forde, in the context of civil litigation, there are a number of other mechanisms which the bill did not include as he asked Nandlall to consider these.
Nandlall in response pointed out that he had acknowledged several times that they had drawn from Kenya, Australia and Singapore when creating the bill. He also referenced the Commonwealth Secretariat model bill which was disseminated in 2019 which remains the most modern expression of the law in this specific area, “and that is the model that we borrowed most heavily from.”
