Dear Editor,
Deaths are sometimes directly or indirectly caused by the acts or omissions of others. Sometimes criminality can attach to those acts or omissions. Sometimes the deceased bring about their own deaths. Sometimes death occurs by accident, or without anyone’s fault at all.
One problem with Guyana’s legislative framework is that it does not, with sufficient specificity, cater to the nuances of criminal conduct. Prosecutors struggle to fit conduct into the broad offences presently available: murder, manslaughter, and causing death by dangerous driving under the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act.
Police and prosecutors tend to charge the most serious offence the circumstances might support—typically murder—leaving the courts to sort it out later. This occurs even in cases where provocation or recklessness is an operating factor and a lesser offence would be more appropriate. A person charged with murder cannot obtain bail from a Magistrate. So anyone whose conduct is initially treated as murderous may spend months in jail before the true legal characterisation of the conduct is determined.
Parliament should amend the laws to establish a clear hierarchy of offences: intentional murder, murder by extreme recklessness, voluntary and involuntary manslaughter, reckless homicide, gross negligence causing death, causing death by dangerous driving, causing death through other statutory breaches, and serious breaches of public duty resulting in death. The legislation should also state explicitly that where the evidence establishes neither the mental element nor a culpable breach of duty, no criminal offence is made out.
Bail consequences should be addressed. Where the evidence does not clearly support murder, a Magistrate should be permitted to grant bail for murder in the same way that Magistrates have the discretion to grant bail, where special circumstances exist, in relation to other offences. No charge should require automatic detention as a result of a questionable prosecutorial decision to charge murder.
Public officials should also be accountable. Where Ministers, Permanent Secretaries, Heads of Departments or other officials have a clear legal duty to protect life, a deliberate or reckless breach of that duty resulting in death should be a criminal offence.
We do not need a Commission of Inquiry to recommend this urgent initiative by any of our parliamentary representatives. These laws exist in many countries, innovative thinking is not needed. Parliament should act and place before the country laws that recognises the nuances of culpability set out above.
Sincerely,
Glenn Hanoman
Attorney at Law
Discussion