Harsh penalties for offenders as domestic violence law being modernised – AG

Highlighting the various deficiencies in the current aged Domestic Violence Act, Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister Anil Nandlall, S.C., has disclosed that the entire legislation will be repealed and replaced with modern laws that will feature harsh penalties for domestic violence perpetrators.
During his weekly programme Issues in the News, AG Nandlall explained that Government will not be amending, but completely overhauling, the Domestic Violence Act into a modern Family Violence Bill which will correct all the deficiencies in the current legislation.

“This new bill that we’re working on, we took a lot of provisions from the United States of America. So, it’s a different type of legislation – very penal, very harsh, because the problem that it is intended to address is one that is oppressive, one that is serious, and one that has resulted in a tremendous amount of violence, deaths, sufferings, breaking up of families, and a whole host of being in anguish. And you have to get a law to respond to that type of social problem,” the minister posited.
According to the Attorney General, the 1996 Domestic Violence Act has become outmoded, and its weaknesses are glaring. “Domestic violence by no measure has reduced in Guyana. The Act, therefore, has been rendered ineffective, and so we now have to make a law of that type effective. The Domestic Violence Act was essentially a legislation in civil law. The new bill will have both civil and criminal remedies,” he explained.
AG Nandlall went on to point out that under the current Domestic Violence Act, persons could have only been jailed for violating civil orders, and not for any criminal conduct. “So, you had order to put the man out of the house, or the woman; you had an order to restrain a particular activity from taking place, but you had no sanctions, no offences of a criminal type. One had to go back under the ordinary criminal law to charge for assault, etc…
“Now, it will be a different type of legislation. Persons will go to jail for domestic violence offences. Persons will be kept in custody rather than be restrained from going into a house or the matrimonial home; they’ll be locked up. It will have orders of that type to keep the abuser away from the victim,” he stated.
However, even as Government is working on instituting harsher penalties for offenders of domestic violence acts, AG Nandlall is cognizant that this alone cannot tackle the issue. On this note, he contended that work is ongoing on a multiplicity of initiatives, including a study on the causes of gender-driven homicide, under the Support for the Criminal Justice Project.
According to the Attorney General, terms of reference (ToRs) are currently being drafted for this study, and soon persons would be invited to submit expressions of interest (EoI) to undertake this survey. This entails examining, over the past 10 years, deaths that had arisen of persons who have spousal relationships, and the causes. The data compiled from these cases would include ethnicity, age, geographical location, societal factors, socio-economic backgrounds, and all other factors that could inform the establishment of the possible cause of these acts.
Nandlall outlined that “…only when we can examine the probable causes of a problem then we can really begin to address the problem… The result of this, hopefully, will also inform the Family Violence Bill that we’re working on. That is why that law will be one that is informed by empirical data, past experiences, etc. It is not going to be a sterile initiative or law reform. It is going to be driven by, and informed by, actual studies of cases, and the new provisions will be informed by the inherent and structural revealed weaknesses of the current law.”
Drawing from Government’s 30 years of practical experience in dealing with the Domestic Violence Act, the Family Violence Bill would seek to correct the deficiencies, omissions and weaknesses contained therein, and ensure an easy process for persons to lodge complaints, while expanding beyond the civil nature of the Act.
Back in March of this year, the Legal Affairs Minister had discussion with the Women and Gender Affairs Commission, led by Indra Chanderpaul, on the new domestic violence legislation. The engagement focused on prioritising the rights and concerns of women and children in the country, as well as to update the Commission on other legislation over which the Commission had raised issues.
These had included the Sexual Harassment Bill – a model legislation produced under the Caribbean Community-led Spotlight Initiative, that is still in progress, and a new Trafficking in Persons Bill 2023, which was passed in the National Assembly in May.
The multi-ministerial effort by the Legal Affairs, Human Services and Social Security and Education Ministries to review the Sexual Offences Act is still ongoing, and will also rely on engagement with the legal profession, Director of Public Prosecutions, the Guyana Police Force, and other stakeholders. (G8)