New Arbitration Bill being crafted to better handle oil-related cases – AG
The Government of Guyana is working on a new Arbitration Bill to better handle cases related to the oil and gas industry, according to Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister Anil Nandlall, SC.
He was at the time delivering the feature address to budding law students at a University of Guyana symposium titled “Paths in the Legal Profession” which forms part of activities for Law Week 2022.
He said the Government is optimistic about creating the requisite infrastructure, training the requisite personnel, and having the system ready to handle disputes that will emanate from the sector.
“We need sophisticated and very advanced financial laws to regulate investments, the raising of monies, the stock market, and all these new and dynamic areas that were never alive in such a way in Guyana,” the Attorney General emphasised.
He noted that a functioning and updated law reporting system is necessary. To this end, the AG has already commissioned a law revision exercise to bring the laws of Guyana up to date. When the exercise is completed, it will incorporate all the updates made from 2012 to 2021.
“That is an important aspect of civilisation and development in a society. The laws must be accessible to every single citizen. Fortunately, we have technological platform that will make that easily possible but we have to get the work done. That exercise has started,” he explained.
Further, an exercise that will bring Guyana’s law reports dating back to the 1800s up to date has been commissioned. He said it has since been updated to the year 2007 and will continue to the year 2020.
During the symposium, the budding lawyers were given brief presentations by UG’s Vice-Chancellor Dr Paloma Mohamed, members of the Judiciary and several legal luminaries. President of the Caribbean Court of Justice, Justice Adrian Saunders also made brief remarks.
Law Week 2022, which is spearheaded by the Guyana Bar Association is being held under the theme “Advancing the Rule of Law in the New Normal”.