For­mer trade min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley vot­ed with the Gov­ern­ment to en­sure the Ev­i­dence (Amend­ment) Bill was passed with the re­quired three/fifths ma­jor­i­ty. It was passed with amend­ments.

It will have to re­turn to the Sen­ate for ap­proval. The Op­po­si­tion ab­stained. Lat­er at a news brief­ing in Par­lia­ment, Pan­day ex­plained the rea­son for the ab­sten­tion. "While we thought parts of the bill are com­mend­able, there are cer­tain parts of the bill which are pos­i­tive­ly dra­con­ian and can re­sult in in­no­cent peo­ple be­ing hanged on the ba­sis of ev­i­dence that has not been test­ed or on oath," he said. Pan­day said the Op­po­si­tion "had a du­ty, not on­ly to en­sure that laws are passed to con­vict crim­i­nals, but al­so to en­sure that the in­no­cent is pro­tect­ed." Ear­li­er in the de­bate, Ca­roni East MP Dr Tim Gopeesingh said the Gov­ern­ment was not se­ri­ous when it met with the Op­po­si­tion to get its sup­port for the leg­is­la­tion.

At that point Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning got up and said be­cause the leg­is­la­tion was "strong" and "in cir­cum­stances where that is re­quired (con­sul­ta­tions) for the prop­er dis­charge of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem...we have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to dis­cuss (and if pos­si­ble) to come to agree­ment with the Op­po­si­tion, that we at­tempt to do that." Man­ning added: "If we cant reach agree­ment then we don't, but we make an at­tempt to do that (and) that's what we did." Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Pe­ter Tay­lor, in his con­tri­bu­tion, spoke in sup­port of the mea­sure to im­ple­ment a sys­tem of video record­ings for state­ments of wit­ness­es.

Gopeesingh said the leg­is­la­tion should not be passed be­cause it had "se­ri­ous reper­cus­sions for fair crim­i­nal tri­als in this coun­try." In wind­ing up de­bate on the leg­is­la­tion yes­ter­day, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie said the bill con­tained sev­er­al safe­guards.