Govt. gives DPP right to appeal verdicts, incarcerate prisoners indefinitely

Mar 20, 2010 News

Opposition perturbed at manner in which contentious legislation was approved

The opposition parties in the National Assembly have described the manner in which the Court of Appeal (Amendment) Bill was passed by the National Assembly, Thursday evening, as a complete sham and a slap in the face of democracy.
The Bill was first read in 2008 and then referred to a Special Select Committee where contributions and possible amendments could be made. But the manner with which the process was eventually proceeded, caused the opposition speaker to slam the Minister of Legal Affairs, Charles Ramson.
Following the tabling of the report by Ramson, the Shadow Legal Affairs Minister, Clarrisa Reihl, rose to make her presentation on the motion to have the House receive the report and things descended into a downward spiral.
Reihl proceeded to put her presentation in context and attempted to give some background on what transpired in the Committee stage but was interrupted by Ramson who attempted to have Reihl’s comments restricted.
Ramson appealed to the Speaker to restrain Reihl based on his interpretation of the Parliamentary Standing Orders, which he said, does not allow for any kind of regurgitation of any history of what took place in the select committee.
“It says here quite clearly when a Bill has been reported from a select committee which has been done, the Assembly may proceed to consider the Bill as reported from the Select Committee.’
It soon was made clear why Ramson did not want to have Reihl expound on the issue as it was revealed that no suggestion from any entity or person was utilised by Ramson who was the chairperson of the Committee.
Reihl explained to the House that in the two years that the Bill was in committee, nine meetings were held and on the day the report was adopted the meeting lasted for 11 minutes.
She told the House that the Bill is very important and of the nine meetings, the PNCR missed one because it was postponed by the Chairman and rescheduled without consultation.
Reihl said that in that eighth meeting when all the opposition members were absent and the draft report was made out, there were no recommendations made with the exception of the Guyana Women Lawyers Association, who made extensive written submissions, and the Director of Public Prosecution.
She said that nothing was taken into consideration.
She told the House that the minutes of the meeting stated that Ramson had indicated that, “since there were no viable suggestions on amendments of the Bill, both at the National Assembly and at the committee level, he saw the need to speedily pursue its completion.”
This, she said, makes a sham of the Select Committee process. “It calls into question the process of Select Committee which is supposed to scrutinise and refine legislation and take into consideration outsiders whose views we solicited in the first instance.”
People’s Progressive Party Member of Parliament, Bibi Shadick, told the House that the views of the Women Lawyers’ position coincided with the opposition that the Bill should not be and that the Director of Public Prosecutions wanted more far reaching powers.
Basil Williams, of the PNCR, questioned what the purpose of the Select Committee was if the opposition were not given adequate avenues to ventilate their recommendations and have them reflected in the report.
He said that the Bill should be recommitted to the select committee but Ramson said that this was not possible.
The opposition had long complained that the Bill, if enacted, will set a dangerous precedent of alarming proportions in that it could allow an innocent person to languish in jail for life, given that the DPP could under the legislation, appeal acquittals at every level of the judiciary.

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