THE Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) has provided preliminary comments on the Protected Disclosures (Whistleblower) Bill 2016 and the Witness Protection Bill 2016 which includes key concerns relating to the drafting of the Bills, as part of the public consultations hosted by the Ministry of Legal Affairs.The ministry began these consultations on October 10, inviting feedback from stakeholders on the Protected Disclosures (Whistleblower) Bill 2016 and the Witness Protection Bill 2016 before they are tabled in the National Assembly.

Commenting on the Protected Disclosures Bill, the GHRA in a press release stated that there needs to be some policy framework within which the legislation will operate, adding that they lack context. “The context for these Bills is the Government’s anti-corruption stance which has not been presented to the country in a coherent or integrated manner,” the release said. Barring context, the GHRA posited that commentary on the Bills will be severely curtailed.

“The focus of …the Bills is prosecution of offenders, thereby marginalising the importance of prevention strategies to foster greater integrity in public life,” the release said. The entity then made the recommendation that the process for the passage of legislation revert to previous parliamentary practice whereby new legislation was introduced via consultation, policy then legislation.

The Bills include several measures relating to the protection of persons who bring to the attention of authorities ‘improper conduct’, including criminal offences, and provide for the establishment of safe houses, provision of new identities if necessary and the establishment of a Witness Protection Programme, among other measures.

Referring to mechanisms such as a Protected Disclosures Commission, an Administrative Centre, an Investigative Agency and a Protective Agency which as “de-contextualized”, the GHRA instead, made observations on various aspects of the legislation, among which it highlighted the political significance of public morality. “The existing political context in which the new Guyanese legislation is intended to function — having been shaped by an illegal constitution, an electoral system devoid of accountability and a widespread culture of public conformity and private dissent — is not conducive to principled civic action. Moreover, corrupt exploitation of this ramshackle political system has seen illicit accumulation of public assets on an unimaginable scale. Rehabilitating these features of personal and public life is the essence of the problem the Disclosures Bill is intended to address,” the release said.

Second, the GHRA noted that there is need for vigorous public vigilance rather than a commission. “Rather than vesting total confidence in individuals divulging information to a single commission to address improper conduct, the society needs a generalised rehabilitation of the culture of expressing opinions freely, demanding the provision of truthful information and holding people to account. Rather than disclosure of misconduct, therefore, the first step should be to identify a range of deterrents to misconduct in the form of vigilance mechanisms, made available at all levels of the public service and where appropriate, extended to private-sector institutions,” the release said.

Third, the GHRA highlighted the lack of capacity to enforce protection measures. “Rather than routinely create a new commission to implement each new piece of legislation, other more imaginative approaches need to be considered,” the release said. The GHRA then suggested that commissions need to be amalgamated, with the rights commissions brought under one Human Rights and Equalities Commission, then separated into sub-commissions. Another approach, the release said, would be to create an Ombudsperson Commission with four or five commissioners, each charged with a specific area of Public Service complaints – employment, justice, police complaints,etc. “A new Anti-Corruption Commission could address SARU concerns, Protected Disclosures, and Whistleblower issues,” the release said.

Finally, the GHRA mentioned the challenge of small size for anonymity, stating that the Bills’ application to such a small society as Guyana in which anonymity is difficult to achieve. “Consideration of this point prompts the notion that more effective integration and cooperation within the CARICOM membership would assist in meeting such a challenge. More CARICOM co-operation on draft legislation would avoid the costly, not to say bizarre situation, in which all CARICOM members are individually producing the same range of new legislation,” the release said.