The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The attorney general has revealed he was only made aware of alternative legislation to regulate Bahamian non-profits days before the current bill was due to be passed by Parliament.

Carl Bethel QC, pictured, told Tribune Business that he was never approached “at any stage” to look at the Civil Society Organisations Bill 2015, adding: “Consultation goes both ways.”

He disclosed that it was only brought to his attention by civil society groups as the Government prepared to move ahead with the Non-Profits Organisations Bill - a piece of legislation it has withdrawn for re-drafting and changes following consultation with the sector.

Mr Bethel said the Government is now seeking to incorporate the best elements of both bills into the revised legislation it hopes to return with to Parliament before the end of January 2019.

Although several non-profit representatives have questioned why the Government ignored the Civil Society Organisations Bill, conceived under the former Christie administration, and instead drew up new legislation, Mr Bethel said the 2015 version focused only on a narrow range of groups.

Arguing that the Civil Society Organisations Bill was not broad enough, the Attorney General told this newspaper: “Nobody approached me at any stage to say: ‘Look at this Bill’. Consultation goes both ways. I didn’t know anything about it until several weeks’ ago. They did not raise it with me. Nobody exposed it to me, pulled it out of a hat.”

Mr Bethel said his legislation drafters had also been unaware of the 2015 Bill, which he said was “directly aimed at civil society and not the broader range of non-profits”.

Pointing out that The Bahamas is home to a vast cross-section of civil society and non-profit groups, he added: “It didn’t extend to the wider range of non-profits. The Bill was very much targeted at civil society agitation groups such as human rights, women’s rights, good governance as opposed to the broader range of non-profit activities.

“It was not a good fit, but there are aspects of that Bill we have incorporated into this Bill. We are looking at the positive aspects of both Bills that can be combined into this Bill.”

Mr Bethel said there were numerous civil society and non-profit groups that had yet to comply with the registration requirements of the sector’s existing regulations, even though it was “quite clear we were pushing for all” to do so.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the organisation that sets the global standards for combating money laundering and terrorism financing, is putting the pressure on The Bahamas to pass this latest legislation. It is understood to be particularly vexed by what it views as minimal to non-existent regulation of non-profits by The Bahamas.

However, the Christian Council and Bahamian churches are seeking “a complete exemption” from the Non-Profit Organisations Bill and its provisions, citing one other jurisdiction that had developed a law exempting the church from such regulation, and arguing that it had established a precedent to justify their demands.

Bishop Delton Fernander, head of the Christian Council, said: “We met with the Attorney General. We had our lawyers put our case forward, citing jurisdictions. We will wait and see what the new Bill looks like and make our position known from there.

“We are at the point now where we have made our case from a legal perspective. We’re just waiting to see what the new bill looks like, if it takes into consideration what we proposed or not. Then, if it does or doesn’t, we will make our position very clear.”

Mr Bethel, though, has described the church’s viewpoint as an “unsustainable position”, adding that the information he possessed contradicted their assertions. While agreeing that one country had drafted such a law, he added that it never been brought to Parliament or passed on to the statute book.