Senate gives green light to amended bail legislation

The Senate has given the green light to the  Bail Act 2023 that now permits the granting of bail at three stages, pre-charge, post charge and post-conviction in defined cases.

The legislation, which was approved with one amendment, repeals and replaces the existing legislation of 2000, and had been reviewed by a Joint Select Committee of the Houses of Parliament.

In piloting the legislation, Leader of Government Business in the Senate and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Kamina Johnson Smith, said it represents an overhaul of the legislation on bail following a thorough review.

“Not only [of] the existing law and the past law but with the following considerations also firmly before us – internationally accepted best practises, changes which have taken place in our society and the unavoidable scale and characteristics of criminal conduct in Jamaica,” she said.

Johnson Smith said the Andrew Holness administration feels confident that the “transparency that is being brought by this Bill does very well [with] respect to the duty of the state to ensure the wider security of the society, the right to life of the wider society as well as of the right to freedom and dignity, as may be held by persons who are accused of criminality”.

Opposition Senator, Donna Scott Mottley, said the Bill had evolved significantly from where it started.

“Every effort was made to ensure that, as far as possible, this Act would meet the intention of the policy decisions which the government has made, that it would be just, that it would be fair, that there was a delicate balance between the rights of a citizen and the freedom which the rest of us seek,” she said.

The sole amendment to the Bill in the Senate, was an adjustment to Clause 8 subsection 12, which deals with electronic tracking devices.

The original clause outlined what constitutes an offence when a defendant causes the removal of an electronic tracking device that is part of the arrangement for bail to be granted.

It was expanded to state that “a defendant who, without lawful excuse, removes an electronic tracking device or causes or allows the removal of an electronic tracking device or the impairment of any function of an electronic device, contrary to a requirement imposed on that defendant under subsection 11 (c), commits an offence”.

The punishment for breaching this provision will, upon summary conviction before a parish court, be a fine not exceeding $1 million or imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year, or both.

The Bill’s Memorandum of Objects and Reasons states that a decision has been taken to enact legislation to repeal and replace the existing Bail Act.

This, having regard to the fact that the existing Act was enacted prior to amendments to the fundamental rights and freedoms provisions contained in Chapter III of the Constitution of Jamaica, the need for new provisions to address circumstances peculiar to Jamaica, and the need for greater clarity in certain provisions of the existing Act.

The legislation was passed in the House of Representatives in July 2023.

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