Guyana is fol­low­ing oth­er ju­ris­dic­tions in the Caribbean where the plea bar­gain mech­a­nisms have con­tributed sig­nif­i­cant­ly to speed and ef­fi­cien­cy in the ad­min­is­tra­tion of crim­i­nal jus­tice.

A state­ment from the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Of­fice said that as part of the gov­ern­ment’s leg­isla­tive agen­da to mod­ernise the sys­tem, a draft Crim­i­nal Pro­ce­dure (Plea Dis­cus­sion and Plea Agree­ment) has been pre­pared and seeks to re­peal the Crim­i­nal Pro­ce­dure Act and is aimed at fa­cil­i­tat­ing dis­cus­sions be­tween pros­e­cu­tors and of­fend­ers to ease the back­log of crim­i­nal cas­es and re­duce the prison pop­u­la­tion, au­thor­i­ties said.

“Its pri­ma­ry in­tent is to pro­vide the op­por­tu­ni­ty for pros­e­cu­tors and ac­cused per­sons to meet un­der spe­cif­ic cir­cum­stances and ne­go­ti­ate a set­tle­ment ac­cept­able to the prin­ci­ples of jus­tice,” the state­ment said.

Of­fi­cial fig­ures show that Guyana has an av­er­age prison pop­u­la­tion of 2,213 per­sons with a fur­ther av­er­age break­down of 1,170 con­victs; 647 on re­mand in­clud­ing 188 ap­pel­lants and 351 await­ing tri­al.

The gov­ern­ment said that the new leg­is­la­tion would ad­dress the gaps in the cur­rent law to ef­fec­tive­ly fast-track crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings, pro­tect the rights of the in­di­vid­ual and en­sure that ac­cused per­sons face penal­ties pro­por­tion­ate to the crimes com­mit­ted.

The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Cham­bers said that in April, 2023, it in­vit­ed com­ments in writ­ing on the draft leg­is­la­tion and that sub­mis­sions were so­licit­ed from the Cham­bers of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP), the Of­fice of the Po­lice Le­gal Ad­vi­sor, the Guyana Bar As­so­ci­a­tion, the Berbice Bar As­so­ci­a­tion, and the Law Re­form Com­mis­sion.

For­mer East­ern Caribbean and British Vir­gin Is­lands judge, Dhar­shan Ramd­hani told a week­end lec­ture and pan­el dis­cus­sion by the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ) on the top­ic, “Re-Think­ing Crim­i­nal Jus­tice”, that Guyana’s draft plea leg­is­la­tion was “fol­low­ing the Trinidad mod­el.

“One of the sig­nif­i­cant things this plea bar­gain­ing is do­ing, and I think we’re learn­ing from Trinidad here in this re­gard, be­cause the Trinidad old Plea Bar­gain­ing Act was sim­i­lar to the present Guyana Plea Bar­gain­ing leg­is­la­tion and what hap­pened was the pros­e­cu­tors could not quite get com­fort­able with the agree­ments that they can come to,” said Ramd­hani who is a project con­sul­tant for the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Cham­bers and Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs.

Ramd­hani said the pros­e­cu­tors and the ju­di­cia­ry in Guyana and Trinidad and To­ba­go are “un­der im­mense pub­lic pres­sure” by the me­dia and so­cial me­dia, of­ten mak­ing it eas­i­er for the judges and ju­ries to de­cide on tri­al rather than face crit­i­cisms from plea bar­gain­ing and dis­cus­sions.

He said Amer­i­can and British le­gal ex­perts have con­clud­ed that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s plea bar­gain­ing act com­plies with Eng­lish Com­mon Law stan­dards, adding “so we haven’t gone to­tal­ly Amer­i­can.”

The draft leg­is­la­tion will al­low for plea dis­cus­sions to be held and plea agree­ments con­clud­ed at any time be­fore con­vic­tion in­clud­ing be­fore charges are in­sti­tut­ed. How­ev­er, the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions would first have to give writ­ten per­mis­sion be­fore a pros­e­cu­tor be­gins dis­cus­sions and reach­es agree­ment.

If the ac­cused per­son has a lawyer, the law states that no such plea dis­cus­sions should be held in the ab­sence of a lawyer. Fur­ther the leg­is­la­tion re­quires the pros­e­cu­tor to in­form the ac­cused per­son or sus­pect of cer­tain rights in­clud­ing the right to be rep­re­sent­ed by a lawyer.

The draft leg­is­la­tion al­so im­pos­es a du­ty on the pros­e­cu­tor to pro­vide the sus­pect or ac­cused per­son with a writ­ten sum­ma­ry of the ev­i­dence against the sus­pect or ac­cused per­son in cir­cum­stances where plea dis­cus­sions are ini­ti­at­ed be­fore charges are laid, as well as in cir­cum­stances where plea dis­cus­sions are ini­ti­at­ed af­ter charges are laid re­spec­tive­ly.

The Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions will en­joy the right to ap­peal to the Guyana Court of Ap­peal if the High Court throws out the plea agree­ment.

GEORGE­TOWN, Guyana, Jun 28, CMC –

CMC/gt/ir//2023