By Robert Hart, Staff ReporterA JOINT contingency of civil groups has called on the Government to scrap the current draft of the controversial Terrorism Prevention Bill and instead adopt a host of international conventions not yet signed by Jamaica.
During Thursday's sitting of the joint select parliamentary committee examining the Bill, Dr. Martin Aub, representing the Civil Society Partnership, highlighted 12 conventions, seven of which have not yet been signed by Jamaica.
The conventions, he claimed, would satisfy the international obligations which initially spurred the drafting of the Terrorism Prevention Bill after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States.
"We now submit that the bringing into Jamaican law of the relevant aspects of these Conventions, together with the amended Clause 14 of the Act, would more than satisfy all of Jamaica's obligations under the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373," Dr. Aub, who also represents Transparency International Jamaica, told the committee.
Resolution 1373 (2001) speaks to the obligation of states to implement anti-terrorism legislation.
Amendments to several provisions, including clause 14 of the Terrorism Bill, were announced during the first meeting of the committee by chairman K.D. Knight, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade.
AMENDMENTS
The clause 14 amendments reduced the power proposed for the Director of Public Prosecutions, preventing him from recommending that an entity be listed as terrorist without it already being so designated by the UN Security Council.
Among the conventions cited by Dr. Aub are the Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings, New York, 1997; the International Convention against the Taking of Hostages, New York, 1979; and the Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, New York, 1999. Only the last of these was signed by Jamaica.
Dr. Aub noted that at the same time, the Security Council's more recent Resolution 1456 (2003), calls on nations to ensure the preservation of human rights while fighting terrorism.
During an earlier presentation on behalf of the Partnership, head of Families Against State Terrorism, Yvonne McCalla-Sobers noted that the 2004 UN Resolution 1526 "clears up many human rights concerns raised by Resolution 1373".
"Jamaica's Terrorism Prevention Bill needs to therefore be redrafted in the light of current UN guidelines," she said.
Pressed by Opposition spokes-man on justice and committee member Delroy Chuck, Ms. Sobers acknowledged that the current draft of the Bill was substantially copied from a Canadian bill. However, noting that Canadian lawyers have protested the manner in which that country's bill has been drafted, she said: "The Canadian bill was passed when there was still panic (after September 11)."
Making the final presentation in the three-part submission from the Partnership was lawyer Nancy Anderson.
Ms. Anderson, who also represents the Independent Jamaica Council for Human Rights, said that despite the recently-proposed Government amendments, the Bill still contained 'over-reaching' provisions.
