The last meeting of the House of Representatives on Monday August 24th. made history; that was when the government nationalized BTL. Compared to that momentous day, today’s House sitting was tame, some media observers even called it boring. But there were a few pieces of important legislation that were passed. First is the Evidence Amendment Bill which allows witness statements to be admitted into evidence at a court hearing where a witness is in fear. Attorney General Wilfred Elrington introduced it but former Prime Minister Said Musa opposed it.
Hon. Wilfred “Sedi” Elrington, Attorney General
“This is a piece of legislation which will allow a witness statement given by a witness who is in fear of going to court to give evidence, to allow that evidence contained in the statement to be admitted at the trial of the accused person.”
Rt. Hon. Said Musa, Fort George Area Rep.
“The Honourable Attorney General referred to the fact that a similar piece of legislation was passed in Jamaica. Actually the legislation in Jamaica is somewhat different to deal with this problem. The language used in their law was that the statement of the witness who is kept away from the proceedings by threats of bodily harm and no reasonable steps can be taken to protect the person. So the wording is different but more importantly Mr. Speaker, I asked myself as I am sure all of us should ask ourselves has this law in Jamaica helped the situation. The truth is that in Jamaica that law has not helped at all. Crime has spiralled completely out of control in Jamaica since 1995 and I am making this point because don’t think that by passing this law today,
that somehow it will be a panacea to solve our crime problem.
We are dealing with a very very serious problem and what I am saying is that this particular amendment is not enough to deal with this problem. You have to change the whole discourse in our country. We have to rally the people to understand that it is the people now who have to stand up against crime and this is not being done by our government.
Don’t tell me now who is to blame, the PUP now fi blame for all this. Don’t tell me the police is to blame. Don’t tell me it is the judges to blame. Let us examine ourselves and see what more we can do. As I said over a year ago Mr. Speaker, nuh watch me yuh noh. Watch yuhself.”
Hon. Patrick Faber, Minister of Education
“Mr. Speaker I am amazed, I am absolutely amazed again just to show you how they are two faced. They come now and the member from Fort George comes with two suggestions as how to make the bill better. He should be ashamed as former Prime Minister and former leader of the PUP and he should know the ways of this House. If you have a suggestion to make and you think it is so brilliant it should have been brought to the committee which I will point out that no member of the opposition turned up for, none. So they will come with their brilliant suggestions. None of them turned up for the meeting nor did they send up any representative to make any kind of suggestion. So for them now to try to suggest at this stage what will make this bill better to me is a farce.”
