The Government, under enormous pressure from its own supporters in particular to respond in some effective manner to the banditry that besets us, on September 26 passed amendments to four statutes dealing with crime which i) created a new offence of the commission of a terrorist act; ii) substantially increased the penalties for offences committed under the Racial Hostility Act, as well as widened the definition of ‘record’ under that statute to include any film, negative or tape; iii) allowed the monitoring by the police of Guyanese convicted of certain offences in a foreign state and permitted the court in dealing with such an individual to receive as evidence his/her criminal record; and iv) expanded the definition of ‘document’ in the Evidence Act to include film, tape, etc, as well as computer-generated material.
As has now become customary - although no less depressing just because the nation has become habituated to it - the amended legislation sent the two major parties into what sounded like war mode. The PNC/R accused the Government of seeking to arrogate to itself “draconian powers,” a move which, it said, could threaten the engagement being mediated by the Social Partners. On its side, the PPP/C accused the opposition, in Mr Robert Persaud’s words, of “frustrating anti-crime action and measures which the people of Guyana support.”
This level of exchange simply aggravated what was already a grim situation. It seems that the degree of suspicion between the two sides is so great that no matter what either one says or does or proposes to do, with whatever good intention in mind, the response that first comes to both their lips is an accusation of impure motives. One might have thought that with banditry taking over the state, the debate between the parties would have concentrated on the purely practical issue of exactly what measures are required to deal with it, and whether the anti-crime amendments had anything to contribute to the attainment of that end, or whether they contained hidden dangers which invited a second look. But no, the political exchanges, particularly on the Government side, went off at a tangent.
It might be noted that other issues too clouded the discussion, more especially whether or not enough time had been given for the political parties and interested groups to consider the amendments. The Government did not need to have wasted all the fax paper it did defending its position on this topic. It should just have accepted the principle that no matter how generous it considered it had been in terms of time, with such fundamental changes in the law envisaged, it would grant a further extension in order to try and achieve some measure of consensus on the provisions, and address the concerns not just of opposition politicians, but also of some very responsible and informed bodies.
As it was, the Government steamrolled the bills through Parliament. Their unseemly haste was especially puzzling, given the fact that the passage of the bills was not going to make any immediate difference to the crime situation.
This doesn’t mean to say, of course, that we don’t need some changes in the law, particularly as it relates to evidence. However, it does mean to say that if further time had been granted for discussion to facilitate the re-drafting of fully appropriate provisions, there would have been no negative consequences as far as crime was concerned, and there might have been positive consequences as far as our laws and the political situation were concerned.
If the bills had indeed been perfect, then they would have withstood the criticisms of knowledgeable lawyers and organizations, and the Government would have lost nothing by allowing a full and open discussion. If they were at some level flawed, then the Government had everything to gain from accepting the inputs of those who worked in the field. It certainly would be counter-productive if - as some lawyers think - certain provisions as currently formulated could be subject to a constitutional challenge somewhere down the road. Such a challenge would be a far more serious defeat for the governing party than if its legal officers had worked with the opposition and the legal fraternity to draft something which was in unambiguous consonance with our constitution and would have satisfied the concerns about the abridgement of civil liberties expressed by various bodies.
Throughout the crisis of the past months, the administration has shown itself even more reluctant than usual to engage those whom it regards as its critics.
In this case, the expertise of some of those critics was certainly no less than that of members of the Government, so why, therefore, did the latter take as its first line of defence the attribution of low motives to those who expressed reservations? The governing party behaves as if only it has the answer to the current crisis; however, after all these months, does it not occur to it that whatever it has done to date is not working? Does it not occur to it that others too might have something to contribute to any plan to restore some level of normality? Does it not occur to it that no sane citizen or organization, including the Guyana Bar Association, and including the Guyana Human Rights Association, wants the banditry to continue? In other words, can the Government not entertain the possibility that not everything it seeks to do is necessarily appropriate to the exigencies of the situation?
And as for the main opposition, it too is guilty of attributing wrong motives.
Through these amendments the Government really is trying to address crime; while there is a problem, it is not with its motivation.
While the controversial amendments have now passed into law, the administration should nevertheless be prepared in principle to modify them if necessary, and the opposition should be prepared in principle to lend it any technical assistance that it can in this regard. We are all tired of unilateralism, and we are all tired of boycotts. The efforts of the Social Partners to arrange a meeting to discuss a way forward will hopefully bear some fruit.