Georgetown: The National Assembly, Thursday evening approved the $56.8 million supplementary budget for the provision of additional inflows under the Inter-American Development Bank’s (IDB) loan.
The loan caters for the operations of law reform in Guyana – a programme that the PPP/C Government had to “invigorate with energy” when it assumed office in August 2020.
Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Mohabir Anil Nandlall, S.C said the money will fund ongoing consultancies under the IDB loan. These include the Bail Bill, as well as the prosecutorial programme.
“You are aware of the establishment of the Law Reform Commission finally, after three years. It is up and running, all of the commissioners have been appointed and the secretariat has been hired. There has been a consultancy hired to do a Bail Bill. That consultancy is almost at an end,” Minister Nandlall explained to the House on Thursday.
On end of the prosecutorial programme under the Restorative Justice Bill aimed at recruiting persons with a Bachelor of Law degree who were unable to complete their education in law, the Attorney General said a special course was designed for those students. For this programme, he said a consultant was hired to design a syllabus and course outline. Incidentally, the Attorney General told the House that he will be meeting with a team from the University of Guyana (UG) discuss and conclude arrangements for that programme on Friday. This programme, he added, will be run and certified by UG.
“It will also form part of the LLB programme run by the university. Of course, we have to pay for that, and when those persons graduate after the conclusion of the course, they will be incorporated into the prosecutorial arm of the state and expectedly, they are to improve the prosecution of offences in the Magistrates Court right across the length and breadth of Guyana,” the Senior Counsel explained.
Further on the Restorative Justice Bill, the Attorney General related that intensive training at the level of the judiciary, magistracy, persecutorial levels and leadership at the community levels has concluded. The training sought to appraise individuals of the concept and execution of the Bill.
The Bail and Restorative Justice Bills will be tabled in Parliament in early 2022.
Notably, the sum of $325 million was approved for the Justice Sector Reform programme under the Ministry of Legal Affairs’ Capital Expenditure. Component one includes the design and implementation of restorative justice programme, $9.340 million; the implementation of case management and court scheduling system, $122.432 million and pretrial detention and intervention, $4.170 million.
Under component two, $45.713 million was approved for alternative sentence intervention, $72.795 million for strengthening of probation services, $42.752 million for support to law reform commission and $16 million for law revision. Component three entails project implementation for which the sum of $11.488 million was approved.
