The Ministry of Justice, Immigration and National Security has been allocated $52.2m to continue its very important work this financial year.
$3.9m of that sum will be spent on capital projects. Featured highly on that list is the project to revise the laws of Dominica.
“Justice and peace will not exist without good laws. These laws must be relevant to the needs of the country and accessible to those who need to use them. A general revision of the laws of a country represents an authoritative statement of the written laws of the country up to a specific date,” said Hon. Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit.
“Since the last general revision that brought into operation the 1990 Revised Edition of the Laws of the Commonwealth of Dominica, numerous laws have been added to the Statute Book of Dominica. Many of these have been amendments to existing laws, as well as new laws, that have repealed and replaced existing laws, or that have been enacted to cover new subject areas. Government has re-established a Law Commission Office and has appointed a Law Revision Commission to undertake the revision process.
“When the revision is complete, a new Revised Edition of the Laws of the Commonwealth of Dominica will be published in loose-leaf form. The laws will also be available on CD-ROM as well as online.”
At the end of that project, the Law Commission Office will be requires to produce biennial supplement pages and CDs of Dominica’s laws.
Also complimenting the Law Revision Project, the Hon Prime Minister revealed that three amendment bills will be presented to the House of Parliament.
He added, “The amendments will be to the Law Revision Act, the Copyright Act, and the Interpretation and General Clauses Act.
“The Attorney General recently met and discussed the draft Legal Profession Bill with a delegation from the Bar Association. This Bill which will be enacted before the end of 2015, will provide statutory support for a new, effective and long needed disciplinary mechanism for holding lawyers to account.”
Border management is also on the list of capital projects for this financial year.
“An amount of $4.0 million has been allocated to the Ministry of Justice, Immigration and National Security to meet payments for the improvements to border management. Work has been substantially completed on the new police stations at La Plaine and Calibishie and these will be formally commissioned during the year.
Renovation of the police barracks at Morne Bruce will also be brought to completion,” he said.
In this financial year, 38 more police officers will be trained to fill existing vacancies in the force.