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Govt. seeks consultant to draft Bail Act
The Ministry of Legal Affairs is looking for a consultant to draft a Bail Act. Presently there is no Act regulating the granting of bail in Guyana. The government and the Inter-American Development (IDB) recently signed a loan agreement for an intervention in the justice system, which seeks to address the institutional, which affect the criminal justice system.
It is referred to as the Criminal Justice System Programme and intends to apply part of the funding towards consulting services Apart from a consultant to draft a Bail Act, the ministry is also looking for a consultant to provide restorative justice facilitator’s training and a consultant to provide leadership development training.
The Bail Act will be aimed at bringing uniformity in relation to the granting and refusal of bail. It is expected to bring some level of consistency in this regard. According to a 2018 Improve Access to Justice in the Caribbean (IMPACT) Report, there are five Caribbean states that have a Bail Act. These are Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Jamaica, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis.
Those without include Guyana, Grenada, Belize, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Montserrat, Dominica and Antigua and Barbuda. In Guyana, bail is not granted for certain offences like murder and treason.
Guyana’s Constitution embraces the doctrine of presumption of innocence until proven guilty and provides that a person who has been charged but not tried within a reasonable time is entitled to be released either unconditionally or upon reasonable conditions.
In considering bail, Judges and Magistrates would consider the serious nature and gravity of the offence, the likelihood of a defendant returning to court, the prevalence of the offence, the criminal record of the defendant, witness tampering, among other factors. Presently, there have been inconsistent approaches by different courts in relation to bail.
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