The Tribune

By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

ATTORNEY General Carl Bethel yesterday said there was broad public consensus for the drafted amendment to the Sexual Offences Act intended to criminalise marital rape, telling parliamentarians yesterday the matter was now before the government.

However, Mr Bethel said there has been no approval by Cabinet as he highlighted a recent town hall forum held in Freeport.

"There is broad national consensus," he said, "that we are able without any serious opposition to now move to criminalise aspects of sexual violence within the bounds of marriage. I would hope - with the broad consensus with the Christian community with the non-denominational churches with the established orthodox churches, with civil society, and with the broader society - we can move in that direction.

"It will be a matter for the government to determine," he added.

Senator

Progressive Liberal Party Chairman and Senator Fred Mitchell yesterday rose to clarify that his presence at the Grand Bahama forum was not an indication of his party's support for the government's proposed amendments.

Mr Mitchell later told The Tribune a formal position had not yet been put to the Official Opposition's shadow Cabinet.

Bahamas Christian Council president Delton Fernander yesterday maintained the organisation's decision to withhold its position until the bill was finalised and formally released.

Yesterday Mr Bethel also provided a status update on the status of proposed amendments and other pieces of legislation in various stages of completion, like land reform efforts and the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), during his contribution to the mid-year budget debate in the Senate.

He also confirmed the appointment of former Court of Appeal President Dame Anita Allen to lead the Law Reform and Revision Commission.

Speaking to land reform, he said, "Sometimes, as in South Eleuthera, these ancestral claims to generation lands are being severely challenged by powerful interests who rely upon old documentary titles, which may or may not be found to have been grounded in any good root of title, but which have purported to pass the property from one documentary title owner to the next.

"Further, the fact that title is recorded based not on the land itself, but based on the name of the buyer, poses great problems in proving whether or not a seller of land can prove a clear title.

Title

"There is no registry where charges or judgments which can run with the land and adversely affect the ability of the seller to pass a clear or unencumbered title, can be found.

"The state of the physical books which record all legal actions and the results and orders made by the courts, called the cause list, remain deplorable and in many cases unreadable or unreliable.

"The commissioner will have responsibility not only for bringing the laws further up to date, hopefully to the end of 2017," he said, "but will also be the judicial hand which, with the assistance of the excellent draftspersons managed by the director of the Law Reform Commission, will steer the course of law reform; inclusive of the proposed reforms of all the Laws of Property and the creation of the land registry."

Mr Bethel said land bills will be updated, and a white paper drafted to form the basis for reforms to the law of property, the creation of a land registry, and "the formation of a Land Commission to travel to each and every major island to document, mark and cause all generational lands claimed."

On FOIA, Mr Bethel said his ministry has staged a series of meetings for the end of the month with a top Jamaican official who was instrumental to the implementation of that country's Access to Information Act.

Damian Cox, the director of access to information in the Ministry of Labour & Social Security of Jamaica, will conduct three meetings, Mr Bethel said, firstly to Cabinet ministers, MPs, senators, parliamentary secretaries and permanent secretaries; secondly to senior public officials from the level of under secretaries to first assistant secretaries; and thirdly to a special meeting with civil society groups.

He said draftspersons in the Office of the Attorney General are working to complete two bills ahead of the main budget debate in June; one to establish Over-the-Hill economic zones, and a bill to allow the finance minister to designate subdivisions for vacant "service lots" to be sold to first time homeowners.

Mr Bethel also flagged upcoming legislative initiatives to be tabled in the House of Assembly: an Anti-Terrorism Act; new Proceeds of Crime Act and Financial Transactions Reporting Act, and the companion Financial and Corporate Services Providers Bill.