AG to check every bill before it is proclaimed

File: AG Ramlogan

Attorney General Anand Ramlogan said Tuesday the government has decided that no bill will be proclaimed unless it passes through his office. He said it is one of the measures taken following the Section 34 matter.

"Since then I can say that one of the tightening ups that has taken place is that no bill will go forward for gazetting or proclamation without the approval of the Attorney General and that has not been the case before, and that has not been the case since Independence," Ramlogan old reporters in San Fernando.

He said, "There is a lot of good that has come out of this experience, so that we can tighten up our procedures to ensure that it doesn’t repeat itself.”

The AG also said that the State would aggressively defend any constitutional motion challenging Parliament’s repeal of the controversial Section 34 of the Administration of Justice (Indictable Proceedings) Act.

And he reiterated that he was not involved in the Section 34 matter. The opposition has insisted that he must take responsibility for it and that the Prime Minister should fire him. She has ignored that and expressed confidence in the AG.Reporters also asked Ramlogan about the constitutional motion filed by businessman Steve Ferguson and Ish Galbaransingh. "We are aware that this is a matter that has deep-seated implications not just for the two defendants...but rather for the criminal justice system as a whole.

“It was a collective parliamentary oversight and through inadvertence a law was passed,” he said. 

“I don’t think the consequences and ramifications of that law were really appreciated at the time by anyone in Parliament, which is why the Opposition and the Government joined hands with members of the Independent bench, the majority of them, to in fact repeal it almost immediately. That is a credit to the Parliament,” he said.