Judiciary to implement Sentencing Guidelines

…absence of such is a disservice to trial Judges, CCJ

In an effort to maintain public confidence in the transparency and consistency of judicial approaches, the Judiciary will soon be implementing Sentencing Guidelines in order to guide sentencing courts in the approach they should take

. This disclosure was made by Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall during a recent interview with Guyana Times.
His comments come three months after the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) in a landmark judgement stressed the need for Sentencing Guidelines to be developed and published by the Judiciary of Guyana.

Disservice
“A disservice is done to trial Judges when there are no guidelines to aid the exercise of their vast sentencing discretion.” The foregoing was noted in the judgement delivered by the regional court.
The judgement was delivered in the case of a 50-year-old father of 12, Linton Pompey vs the Director of Public Prosecutions. Pompey was convicted on September 21, 2015, of three sexual offences committed on a 14-year-old girl – two counts of rape and one count of sexual assault.
The trial Judge sentenced him to 15 and 17 years in prison, respectively, for the first and second rape charge. A prison sentence of five years was given on the sexual activity charge. The three sentences were ordered to run consecutively, effectively giving Pompey a 37-year jail sentence. He appealed to the CCJ after the Court of Appeal of Guyana affirmed his conviction, but only granted him leave to appeal against the sentence.

At the CCJ, Prominent Attorneys-at-Law Nigel Hughes and Ronald Daniels represented Pompey, and argued that the sentence imposed on their client by the trial Judge was excessive.
In its majority ruling, the regional court reduced his sentence to 17 years on the basis that among other things, the trial Judge erred when she failed to sufficiently consider that the resulting combined sentences “would be excessively high”. In reducing the convict’s sentence, the CCJ affirmed the sentences of the trial Judge; the court, however, ordered that the prison terms run concurrently, instead of consecutively.
“This appeal underscores the urgent need for the Judiciary of Guyana to publish Sentencing Guidelines. The publication of Sentencing Guidelines would undoubtedly play a key role in building public trust and confidence in the Judiciary of Guyana and in promoting the rule of law,” noted CCJ Judge Maureen Rajnauth-Lee.
The CCJ’s panel of seven Judges agreed that Guyana’s trial Judges would be better served if they were guided by appropriate guidelines that suggest various sentencing ranges for the most prevalent crimes. The apex court noted that the Model Guidelines for Sexual Offences cases recognised that several jurisdictions in the English-speaking Caribbean had not published sentencing guidelines.
However, the CCJ further noted that included in the Model Guidelines, therefore, were Guidelines for Sentencing which sought to provide guidance to trial Judges to assist in the determination of the appropriate sentence in sexual offence cases. Several States throughout the Caribbean Community have established such guidelines including Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.

No consistency

However, Nandlall explained that there is no statute or regulation in Guyana guiding Judges and Magistrates in imposing sentence on a person found guilty of an offence. In light of the foregoing, he noted that in the absence of such guidelines, a sentence is largely discretionary.
“As a result, you find that there is no uniformity and consistency in the sentences imposed. The law offers general principles only in relation to sentences. For example, the statute may impose the number of years as a custodial sentence; let us say between two to five years. General law outlines the principles that guides Magistrates and Judges.” These, he explained, includes a convict’s character and antecedents, prevalence and serious nature of the offence, manner in which the offence was committed as well as aggravating and mitigating factors.
Notwithstanding the above-named principles, Nandlall noted that countries have promulgated guidelines to guide Judges and Magistrates to achieve uniformity and consistency when imposing sentence.
In this regard, he disclosed that Sentencing Guidelines which were developed a decade ago by the justice improvement project, but were never implemented, will be reviewed, updated and sent for consultation. Once agreed upon, they will be implemented.
“I have advised that those sentencing guidelines done 10 years ago be reviewed and updated. This will save time and money. Once updated it will be sent to the relevant parties for consultations.” These would include the Chancellor of the Judiciary, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Bar Association of Guyana.

Full support
Meanwhile, President of the Guyana Bar Association, Attorney-at-Law Teni Housty in an invited comment said that the Bar welcomes the move to bring Sentencing Guidelines on stream after the necessary consultation as it is something Guyana urgently needs. In fact, he revealed that the matter is of utmost priority for the Bar Association which has implemented a sub-committee to examine the proposed guidelines.
“We [Bar Association] have a criminal sub-committee of the Bar Association examining it, that is part of their mandate. We welcome the guidelines. They are definitely needed and we hope to play a part in the development of them. And we hope that when they are developed that they are implemented. But what should not be lost in using Sentencing Guidelines is what has been developed in some countries—Maximum Sentence Indicators,” Housty related.
Hughes on Sunday expressed that he welcomes the effort by the Attorney General to have Sentencing Guidelines implemented. He emphasised that for far too long there have been too many anomalies in sentencing patterns across the board.
According to Hughes, “[the issue of sentencing] has been a source of considerable anguish among people who have been convicted of offences by the High Court. The lack of uniformity and predictable in the possible range of the sentence continues to be problematic.”
Hughes made reference to the aforementioned judgement. The lawyer recalled that in that judgement, too, the CCJ made “very strong” recommendations to the Court of Appeal in relation to adopting Sentencing Guidelines.