With criminal trials set to resume this week, the Government of Guyana, the Judiciary, the Guyana Police Force and the Guyana Prisons Service are collaborating for speedy hearings and to enable prisoners to appear virtually before the courts.
This move comes in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic which has placed severe restraints on the movement and gathering of persons in every endeavour, a release from the Attorney General’s Chambers said yesterday.
It said that the teams met at the Umana Yana yesterday and made a series of important decisions. The release said that the Government team was led by Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall, and included Minister of Home Affairs Robeson Benn and a number of technical personnel from the National Data Management Authority.
Representing the Judiciary were Chief Justice (ag) Roxane George-Wiltshire, Justice Nareshwar Harnananan and Justice Brassington Reynolds. Assistant Commis-sioner of Police, Clifton Hickens, led a team from the Guyana Police Force and the Director of Prisons, Gladwin Samuels, and his staff were present on behalf of the Guyana Prisons Service.
The release said that the principal objective of the engagement was to establish the required physical and technical infrastructure for criminal litigation to take place on virtual platforms.
“In this regard, a decision was made to install retrofitted containers at prison locations situated at Camp Street, George-town; Lusignan, East Coast Demerara; New Amsterdam and Mazaruni. These containers will be air-conditioned and equipped with the necessary technical apparatus that will provide a link to the prisoners and the various Court houses”, the release said.
Once implemented, the release said that this measure will obviate the need for prisoners to be transported physically out of the prisons and taken to the various Courts for their cases.
Another aspect of this project is to similarly equip identified Police Stations across the country, where defendants will appear at first hearings for the charges to be read to them and for them to enter their plea and to make any other relevant Applications. The release said that Caribbean jurisdictions are already moving in this direction with Trinidad and Tobago being the most advanced. The team will use Trinidad and Tobago as the model to design Guyana’s system, the release added.
