– Freedom of Information Bill expected in Parliament soon
PRESIDENT Bharrat Jagdeo has denounced the pontifications of the Opposition with regards to the Judicial Review Bill, which was passed on Thursday in the National Assembly. The Bill seeks to bring the judicial system to the 21st century as it is an attempt to modernise the process which challenges executive and other administrative authority. Those challenges were done in the past by the prerogative writ.
The President said that very few countries have a Bill so advanced. The Bill sets out in many areas, how Government officials and statutory bodies and their decisions can be challenged.
“Public officials cannot pursue arbitrary actions against members of the public without being held to account; they would have to be accountable for all their actions,” President Jagdeo said.   
Provisions of the Bill go further to allow disadvantaged persons, including poor people who cannot afford a lawyer to access judicial recourse. 
“So it is a very advanced piece of legislation that gives significant powers to the citizens of this country to hold their Government and Government officials accountable and it also empowers poor people, so that they are not shut out from justice simply because they can’t afford legal representation,” the Head of State posited.
Government is achieving its promise to improve the justice sector and has established legal aid clinics across the country to ensure that the vulnerable are not denied access to justice because of their circumstances.
Government is now working to have the passage of the Freedom of Information legislation which will give Guyanese citizens greater access to information in the public domain.
President Jagdeo also talked about the liberalisation of the radio monopoly that the State currently has, so that Guyanese will be subjected to a greater divergence of opinion.
With respect to Campaign Finance Reform, he said that “I have always supported this, but we have to be careful that we don’t adopt a model that leads to a lot of disadvantage.”
He explained that if some play by the rules of the game and others don’t then certain parties can be placed at a significant disadvantage.
“While we support campaign finance reform, we need to be careful that we craft a Bill that recognises all of these possible loop holes and take measures that will address them so that there is absolutely a level playing field in all of the parties,” the President stated. (GINA)