ANTI-TERRORISM ( COMMENCEMENT & VALIDATION) BILL 2023 PASSED DURING SPECIAL SITTING OF HOA
The Anti-Terrorism (Date of Commencement and Validation) Bill, 2023 passed the committee stage without alterations on June 1st, 2023, during a special session of the House of Assembly.
The Bill was taken through all phases during the special sitting, which also served as the final sitting in the 200-year-old Historic Court House Building.
Dr. Hon. Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister and Minister of National Security, stated in opening debate on the Bill that 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 noted, however, that while the Act was published in the gazette, it had not yet gone into effect. “It is necessary for us to have this Act come into effect on March 31, 2023,” Dr. Gonsalves remarked.
The Prime Minister stated that the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) is now conducting its fourth round of examination of this country. According to him, the mutual evaluation is a peer review headed by the CFATF of the levels of implementation of the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) 40 recommendations and 11 immediate results.
“None of this affects any institution of any criminal action because you can’t charge somebody for something that wasn’t enforced at the particular time, this is a matter that is only addressing the Mutual Evaluation report,” Dr. Gonsalves said, referring to the Bill’s expedition as a “tidying up measure.”