Sex bill gets nod from Senate

AFTER 14 years in gestation, the Sexual Offences Bill covering all forms of sex crimes was on Friday passed by the Senate with 28 amendments.
Debate on the Bill, which will repeal the Incest (Punishment) Act and several provisions of the Offences Against the Person Act, began in 1995 when the Offences Against the Person (Amendment) Bill and the Incest (Punishment Amendment) Bill, covering rape, incest and other sexual offences were tabled and referred to a Joint Select Committee. The committee, however, failed to find common ground on several amendments, and the bills fell off the Order Paper of the House at prorogation.

The bills remained stagnant until they were retabled in 2006 by AJ Nicholson, the then Leader of Government Business in the Senate and Attorney General under the People's National Party Administration. They were then referred to another Joint Select Committee whose report also fell off the Order Paper prior to the 2007 general election, which the Jamaica Labour Party won.
Debate on the Bill, which resumed with the new session of Parliament, was "painful and troubled", ending on numerous occasions with House members at odds with each other.In closing the debate on the Act on Friday, Leader of Government Business in the Senate Attorney General and Justice Minister Senator Dorothy Lightbourne narrowly avoided the familiar furore when, in tabling and apologising for the late arrival of the amendments, she responded to criticisms levelled last week by the Opposition.

The Opposition at the time had said not enough care was being taken with respect to the pre-parliamentary process for bills, leading to poorly drafted provisions which left them to play a 'quality control role' and also argued that partisan views were seeping in.
Tempers flared when Lightbourne classified concerns by Nicholson, the Leader of Opposition Business in the Senate as "foolish and nonsensical", and boiled over when Senator KD Knight responded, describing Lightbourne's approach to the concerns as "idiotic".
"Up until the year 2007, for the past 18 years - despite having persons who really considered themselves brilliant minds - the Ministry of Justice really suffered from a lack of leadership, it suffered from poor laws, backlog in our Courts, a poor justice system and so for the last two years we have been trying to fix it," Lightbourne said on Friday.

Knight then stood on a point of order, but Lightbourne refused to yield.

"I will not yield Mr President," she said.
President of the Senate Oswald Harding, who was also severely criticised last week for his handling of affairs in the chamber, however, stood his ground."Just a moment Madame Minister, I wish to hear what he has to say".
An evasive Knight while questioning whether the amendments were additional or those which had been earlier suggested, slipped in a parting shot."May I say honourable minister that I think Jamaica and hopefully the region, and hopefully by now the world, must by now recognise the remarkable transformation of the justice system since the advent of the leadership of this minister".

He was prevented from commenting further by Harding.
"You wanted to ask a question and I accepted, it's not a debate, the minister is closing," Harding said decisively.Debate on the Bill was concluded without further incident, with senators on both sides working in tandem in consensual and even cordial tones that were devoid of the customary bitter sparring. Among the issues senators grappled with in the final stages was whether minors who engaged in sexual acts should be held criminally responsible given the fact that the age of consent is 16 years old. Lightbourne, in responding to the concerns, said intercourse among minors could not be legalised at this time. She added that the ministry was in the process of developing a trial diversion programme. She said the dilemma should be dealt with under the provisions for juvenile delinquency for the time being.

Under the Act, sexual intercourse refers solely to penetration of the vagina by the male organ. Carrying out that act forcibly constitutes rape. A separate offence - Grievous Sexual Offence - has been created to deal with circumstances where the offender either penetrates the vagina or anus of the victim with a body part other than the penis or with an object or forces another person to do so to the victim. This distinction is a direct attempt to keep buggery, which is punishable in Jamaica with up to 10 years in jail at hard labour, an offence.

The Sexual Offences Bill provides for, among other things:
. a statutory definition of rape;
. the abolition of the common law presumption that a boy under 14 years old is incapable of committing rape;
. protecting the anonymity of the complainant; and
. for the offence of rape to be gender-neutral meaning it can be committed by either male or female and against both male and female.

It also sets out the circumstances under which a spouse who has sexual intercourse with the other spouse without the spouse's consent will commit the offence of rape.
Ironically, the Bill was passed by the Lower House in March of the last Parliamentary year with only six amendments. The reworked provision will now be sent back to that Chamber before being gazetted and made enforceable in the near future.
END.

Note: nearly every article produced on the bill seems to overlook that anal sex or homosexuality was even discussed or factored in the debate. The definition of sexual intercourse doesn't recognise anal sex as such.