Twelve years af­ter it was de­bat­ed and passed in Par­lia­ment with a three-fifths ma­jor­i­ty, the Dan­ger­ous Dogs Act will take ef­fect from Au­gust 1. This fol­lows a Cab­i­net de­ci­sion last Thurs­day to en­force the law by Procla­ma­tion of the Pres­i­dent. The Act pro­hibits im­por­ta­tion and breed­ing of three cat­e­gories of dogs, the Pit­bull Ter­ri­er, Fi­la Brasiliero and Japan­ese Tosa.

The Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment will have the pow­er to de­clare any oth­er type of dog dan­ger­ous if they present a se­ri­ous dan­ger to the pub­lic. In a re­lease yes­ter­day, the Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al said the law was be­ing en­forced be­cause of re­cent and grow­ing at­tacks on cit­i­zens by pit­bulls. "The facts show that of­ten these dan­ger­ous dogs are not prop­er­ly trained or se­cured. In re­cent times, dan­ger­ous dogs have been al­lowed to es­cape on­to the road and at­tack per­sons, caus­ing se­vere in­juries and, in some cas­es, death," the min­istry stat­ed.

With­in three months of the law com­ing in­to force, own­ers of dan­ger­ous dogs must have them spayed or neutered by a vet­eri­nary sur­geon and they must be reg­is­tered with the Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment. Dog own­ers must al­so ob­tain an an­nu­al li­cence from their mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tion at a cost of $500 a dog.

In ad­di­tion, they must have at least $250,000 worth of in­sur­ance for each dog. Cit­i­zens who keep or own un­li­censed dan­ger­ous dogs will be li­able to be fined $50,000 and one year im­pris­on­ment on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion.