Government to host consultations on gay relationships, corporal and capital punishment
CABINET Secretary and Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon announced that public consultations will soon be held to discuss the decriminalisation of same sex unions and the abolition of capital and corporal punishments. According to Dr. Luncheon, this is in keeping with the commitment made in Geneva in 2010 to host consultations in the three areas for submission to the Human Rights Commission through the Universal Periodic Review (UPR).
The matters in question have been considered at Cabinet’s sub-committee on governance which provided recommendations to the wider body, he added.
“Cabinet finalised its intentions subsequent to engagements at the governance sub-committee at that level, and where considerations of the subject matter took place and recommendations provided to Cabinet,” Dr. Luncheon explained.
As to the details of the discussions, he disclosed that Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand will host those consultations, which will be taken in the broader context of consultation that would continue on the draft Education Bill 2012.
In addition, Minister of Home Affairs, Clement Rohee has been appointed to organise the public consultations involving stakeholders and dealing with the matter of capital punishment.
In this regard, the Cabinet Secretary reminded that legislative interventions during the Jagdeo’s administration had rejected abolition of the death penalty in favour of offering other penalties for defined categories of murder.
He announced too that Presidential Advisor on Governance, Gail Teixeira will take charge of public consultations on decriminalizing same-sex unions

Alluding to the schedule for these meetings, he said, “We have the remaining months of this year to conclude the consultations, summarise what comes from these consultations, and to present those findings as they are grouped and formulated as the state’s policy on these three matters. You have at least nine months; I would want to believe that we would be able to provide to everyone’s satisfaction a pretty reasonable national effort at defining where we stand on these issues.”

Commitments
While addressing questions as to why there have been no executions given the fact that, at present, many prisoners are on death row, the HPS reminded of Guyana’s commitment to the International Human Rights body.
He said: “If I am forced to answer, I would say this, we took to the UPR in 2010, we left the UPR in 2010 with a commitment to consult on the matter, and if I am boxed in to offering some defense on the delay in implementing the laws of Guyana, I would want to say among out peers, parliamentary democracy et al, we did commit to public consultations on the matter.”
The Cabinet Secretary revealed that the country’s commitment made in Geneva 2010 in some way, has influenced “the disregarding of the legal provision that exists for execution of convicted murderers.”

UPR
The UPR was established when the Human Rights Council was created on 15 March 2006 by the UN General Assembly in resolution 60/251, and is a unique process which involves a review of the human rights records of all 192 UN Member States once every four years.
It is a significant innovation of the Human Rights Council which is based on equal treatment for all countries, and provides an opportunity for all States to declare what actions they have taken to improve the human rights situations in their countries and to overcome challenges to the enjoyment of human rights; the UPR also includes a sharing of best human rights practices around the globe. Currently, no other mechanism of this kind exists.