Equal Opportunity Act is law but needs amending, says AG

Prime Minister Patrick Manning has said the Equal Opportunity Act would not be implemented until Government had reviewed and amended it, but Sunday Newsday understands that the Act is actually in force as the law of the land.

Attorney Garnet Mungalsingh, acting for Disabled People International, took issue with Manning’s claim that the Act had not been proclaimed. At Thursday’s post Cabinet Press Conference at Whitehall, Manning had asserted: “Some amendments must take place to the Act before it is implemented.” Representing the disabled protestors who had been assaulted outside National Flour Mills (NFM) while demonstrating for employment, former attorney general Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj has threatened to bring a constitutional motion to compel the Government to implement the Equal Opportunity Act to protect the disabled.” His colleague, Mungalsingh, said: “The Act has been assented to and proclaimed.” “That’s what our constitutional motion is about. We have been calling for the appointment of an Equal Opportunity Commission and Equal Opportunity Tribunal. The Government must obey the rule of law and implement it. We filed a constitutional motion on Thursday afternoon. It will be heard on July 1 at the Fifth Civil Court, Port-of-Spain.” “There is no commission or tribunal to which they can take their complaints. People are being discriminated against and the protection of the law has been taken away from them.” “If the Act requires an amendment, amend it later, but the law must be obeyed meanwhile”. Sunday Newsday obtained a copy of the legal notice, under which the Act had been implemented.

The Bill was proclaimed in a Legal Supplement Part B, Volume 39, Number 230, 20th November, 2000, as legal notice number 285, number 26 of 2000. The proclamation stated: “I Ganace Ramdial, Acting President, as aforesaid, do hereby appoint the 20 day of November 2000 as the date on which Part VI of the Equal Opportunity Act 2000 comes into force and the 31 day of January 2001 as the date on which the remaining Parts of the said Act shall come into force.” Sunday Newsday contacted former President of the Senate, Ganace Ramdial, and read out the legal notice to him. Based on this, he confirmed the Equal Opportunity Act was indeed in force as the law of the land, saying: “It has been proclaimed and so it is law.” Attorney General, Glenda Morean, acknowledged the Equal Opportunity Act had been passed, but said it could not currently be implemented. She said the problem existed in the section of the Act responsible for setting up the Equal Opportunity Commission and Tribunal.Morean said: “The composition of the tribunals needs  to be amended. I have an officer working on it. An officer had given me a report but it wasn’t satisfactory, so I have a different officer taking a fresh look”.  She said the Government thought the Bill was important but said it also had so many other Bills to urgently legislate.

Morean explained that Parliament had been busy passing the Finance Act, Summary Courts Act and a Bill about the leasing of State land. “Parliament takes a long time debating, as everyone wants to have their say, for example on the Kidnapping Bill, which itself had to be put back for us to do the Civil Aviation Bill which was urgently required to put our civil aviation system in order.” Pressed as to whether the Equal Opportunity Act was in force, she said: “There is an Act passed and in effect, but you can’t continue — like the Sentencing Commission Bill — because it can’t work.” “There is a lot of legislation on the books but which can’t be implemented. Mr Maharaj knows that.” Morean concluded: “We need to look at the whole thing, re-engineer the Act properly. That is being done.”