The Anti-Terrorism (Date of Commencement and Validation) Bill, 2023passed the committee stage without amendments during Special sitting of the House of Assembly, on June 1st 2023.
The Bill was taken through all its stages at the special sitting which was also the final sitting to be held in the 200 year old Historic Court House Building.
In opening debate on the Bill, Prime Minister and Minister of National Security, Dr. Hon. Ralph Gonsalves said the anti-terrorism act 2023 was passed in the House of Assembly on March 21st, 2023 and published in the gazette as Act no. 5 of 2023.
He explained, however, that the while the Act was published in the gazette, it did not come into operation up to that time. Dr. Gonsalves said “it is necessary for us to have this Act come into operation from the 31st of March 2023”.
The Prime Minister said this country is currently undergoing its fourth round mutual evaluation by the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF). The mutual evaluation, he said, is a peer review by the global community led by the CFATF to assess the levels of implementation of the Financial Action Task Force’ (FATF) 40 recommendation and 11 immediate outcomes.
“None of this affects any institution of any criminal action because you can’t charge somebody for something which was not enforced at the particular time, this is a matter which is only addressing the Mutual Evaluation report,” said Dr. Gonsalves, while making reference to the expedition of the Bill as a “tidying up measure”.