Gail Alexan­der

Gov­ern­ment must say if it sought views on the Bail Amend­ment Bill from those op­posed to the bill in 2015 in­clud­ing the Law As­so­ci­a­tion whose vice pres­i­dent Ger­ry Brooks is now in Gov­ern­ment, says for­mer PP at­tor­ney gen­er­al Garvin Nicholas

Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion meet to­mor­row on the bill which laps­es in Au­gust. Gov­ern­ment wants to ex­tend it for an­oth­er two years due to cas­es in the courts. The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al said he'd writ­ten the Op­po­si­tion since June 2 seek­ing a meet­ing on the bill which re­quires Op­po­si­tion sup­port for pas­sage. De­bate was shelved two weeks ago when the Op­po­si­tion then sought a meet­ing on it.

Nicholas, in an in­ter­view, said, "In analy­sis for the way for­ward, re­search has to be done in­to the ef­fect of the law and it's al­so im­por­tant to as­cer­tain the views of those ve­he­ment­ly op­posed to the bill be­fore (in PP's tenure) such as Mr Brooks who was part of the LATT ex­ec­u­tive which op­posed it and who signed a re­lease to that ef­fect in 2015."

"He's now in Gov­ern­ment as a State board chair­man of NGC and a num­ber of oth­er boards - has his view changed as a re­sult, will he and LATT sup­port ex­ten­sion of some­thing which he'd op­posed when he was out of Gov­ern­ment?

LATT pres­i­dent Regi­nald Ar­mour and Brooks didn't im­me­di­ate­ly re­ply to calls on LATT's po­si­tion on the bill.

Nicholas added,"The tim­ing of such leg­is­la­tion comes at a pe­ri­od when gov­ern­ment finds crime and mur­der rates un­ac­cept­able.

"The es­ca­la­tion in­di­cates more el­e­ments at play so it's im­por­tant to curb caus­es as well as gun vi­o­lence and own­er­ship, and strength­en laws on il­le­gal firearms."

To­mor­row's talks will be be­tween a five-mem­ber Gov­ern­ment team led by the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and an Op­po­si­tion team lead by the Whip, UNC of­fi­cials in­di­cat­ed.