Opposition cannot support bill as is

I CONSIDER this bill to be, by far, the most dangerous legislation to have been initiated by any Government in Jamaica since I entered Parliament in 2007. The bill does not address any of the real issues that need to be solved if we are to get on top of our national crime problem. On the other hand, it facilitates the imposition of a regime involving the deprivation of basic rights by a procedure which provides effectively unchecked powers to the Government of the day and allows this to continue for as long as the Government wishes. For these reasons, I cannot support this bill in its current form. In light of this, the reader may ask: So what does the Opposition support as legislative action? Having passed the DNA legislation in 2015, we await the regulations that are urgently required to make it actionable, and we await the legislation to provide MOCA with a solid legal framework. We also support the pipeline of legislation that we left in the Ministry of Justice to strengthen the justice system, including the recently passed plea bargaining act and the two bills tabled by Minister Chuck this week, one of which will eliminate various anachronistic jurisdictional rules that often prevent the various offences arising from a particular crime being tried in the same proceedings, and the other to empower the court to order convicted persons to compensate the victims of their crimes. The Opposition is fully on board with all constitutional, sensible and workable solutions that address the real issues that confront the nation in relation to national security.