Guidelines being framed to fix “inconsistent, eccentric” sentencing – AG
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Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister, Anil Nandlall SC
The Guyana Government has embarked on crafting sentencing guidelines for the Judiciary to abide by, and according to Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister Anil Nandlall, those guidelines would be available once ongoing consultations are completed.
During his weekly programme of Issues In The News, Nandlall explained that this initiative is being commissioned by the Legal Affairs Ministry under the Inter-American Development Bank-funded ‘Support for Criminal Justice’ programme.
“[This is] a project to craft sentencing guidelines for Guyana. Examining Guyana and examining similar guidelines promulgated in the Caribbean in particular, and then other jurisdictions; and then formulate for Guyana a peculiar and a unique set of guidelines for the Guyanese Judiciary and the Guyanese legal system that would take into account the realities of Guyana,” the Minister explained.
However, he noted that this requires consultation with stakeholders such as the judiciary, the practising bar, the Guyana Police Force (GPF), and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Chambers. According to AG Nandlall, only the Judiciary is left to be engaged.
“I believe that the consultative engagements have concluded, except with the Judiciary. Hopefully, that will be done shortly, and we can have those sentencing guidelines available for promulgation. The Judiciary is central to this process because it is the Judiciary that will have to hand down these sentences. So, an input from the Judiciary is crucial in this whole process. So, we are working on sentencing guidelines,” he stated.
The Legal Affairs Minister made these remarks in response to concerns being raised in the public about the sentencing patterns in Guyana, which he acknowledged are not “…uniform, and they are not consistent, and sometimes they can be viewed as erratic and eccentric.”
Nandlall pointed out that this is one of the issues that he and his Cabinet colleagues are bombarded with when they go out to communities to engage citizens.
Only last month, a man who was a juvenile when he killed a Canada-based hotelier and his employee at Number 63 Village, Corentyne Berbice back in 2019 was sentenced at the Berbice High Court to serve four years in custody.
This is in addition to the series of rehabilitative orders imposed by Justice Simone Morris-Ramlall after the accused had pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Upon his release after serving his sentence, the young man will be placed on three years’ probation, during which he would be monitored for good behaviour.
In accordance with the Juvenile Justice Act, notwithstanding that the felon is now an adult, he is afforded certain protections because he committed the crime while he was just 16 years old. As such, his name, address, other particulars and photograph cannot be published.
The young man was initially charged with two counts of murder for the deaths of Vivekanand Narpatty, 71, and his employee Harry Prashad, which occurred between December 19 and 27, 2019.
Police have said that Narpatty had owned and resided at the Sun Splash Holiday Beach Resort, located at Lot 110 Number 63 Village, Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne). On Friday, December 27, 2019, at about 11:20h, the bodies of the two men were discovered on the second flat, in the balcony area of the hotel. This newspaper was told that relatives visited the resort after several telephone calls to the overseas-based Guyanese had gone unanswered.
According to a relative, upon arrival, a stench was detected coming from the building, and this had prompted them to call the Police. The body of Narpatty, who had arrived in Guyana on December 16, 2019, was found with two toes from his left foot severed; and Prashad was found with both hands tied behind his back onto a post on the balcony, and his left foot was severed from the ankle. Investigators concluded that the men had been tortured before being killed.
Since last month’s sentencing, however, family members of Narpatty have expressed dissatisfaction with the light jail term that was imposed on the teenager.
Nevertheless, the Legal Affairs Minister posited that while he cannot influence the Judiciary, a formal set of guidelines would allow the Judiciary to hand down more uniform sentences.
“I repeatedly explain that the Judiciary is independent, but that there are certain principles that govern the way sentences are formulated. It has to do with the gravity of the crime, the extent of the cruelty. It has to do with the prevalence of the offence. It has to do with extenuating or aggravating circumstances. It has to do with the age of the victim or the age of the accused person. It may be influenced by the character and reputation of either the deceased or the accused persons. All these are factors that have accumulated over the years, that have formed themselves into guidelines that judges ought to adopt in handing out these sentences,” Nandlall noted. (G8)
https://guyanatimesgy.com/guidelines-being-framed-to-fix-inconsistent-eccentric-sentencing-ag/
