Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

The Dan­ger­ous Dog Act is un­der re­view and may not be pro­claimed on Au­gust 1. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has or­dered a re­view of the leg­is­la­tion based on con­cerns raised by dog own­ers. Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs Prakash Ra­mad­har made the dis­clo­sure at a pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion held by the Con­gress of Peo­ple (COP) at the Tu­na­puna Hin­du School yes­ter­day.

Ra­mad­har said mem­bers of the COP in­volved in an­i­mal right is­sues had asked him to take their con­cerns to Gov­ern­ment. "In the COP we have a phi­los­o­phy of con­sul­ta­tion and at the na­tion­al coun­cil we have many mem­bers who are in­volved ac­tive­ly in the wel­fare of an­i­mals gen­er­al­ly. They have brought to us a re­quest that the Gov­ern­ment re­view the Dan­ger­ous Dog Act.

"We took the con­cerns to Cab­i­net as it is my re­spon­si­bil­i­ty as their leader and their MP and the Prime Min­is­ter has in­struct­ed that the Dan­ger­ous Dog Act be sent back for fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tion." The St Au­gus­tine MP has since spo­ken to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan on the leg­is­la­tion and it is be­ing re­viewed.

"The at­tor­ney gen­er­al and I spoke and he said he would be look­ing at the Dan­ger­ous Dog Act and tak­ing in­to ac­count the views of the pop­u­la­tion. We had planned this con­sul­ta­tion be­fore and we are so hap­py now that we have been able col­late all the views and take it to the at­tor­ney gen­er­al for a fresh look," Ra­mad­har said.