Select Committee to Review Bills to Impose Stricter Penalties for Murder

The Senate has appointed a select committee to review three crucial pieces of legislation to impose stricter penalties for murder.

They are the Criminal Justice (Administration) (Amendment) Act 2023, the Offences Against the Person (Amendment) Act 2023, and the Child Care and Protection (Amendment) Act 2023.

Committee members, who were named during Friday’s (April 21) sitting of the Upper House, will sit jointly with a similar committee appointed by the House of Representatives to consider and report on the Bills.

Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce, and Deputy Leader of Government Business in the Senate, Senator the Hon. Aubyn Hill, moved the motion in the Upper House.

The Senate committee members are Senators Sherine Golding Campbell, Kavan Gayle, Ransford Braham, Sapphire Longmore, Lambert Brown, Sophia Frazer Binns and Donna Scott Mottley.

The members of the committee from the House of Representatives are Minister of Justice, Hon. Delroy Chuck; Minister of Education and Youth, Hon Fayval Williams, and Members of Parliament Kerensia Morrison, Donovan Williams, Tamica Davis, Dr. Angela Brown Burke and Denise Daley.

Tabling the Bills in the House of Representatives in February 2023, Minister Chuck explained that the Government is looking to increase the mandatory minimum sentences for murder, to ensure greater alignment between the sentencing regimes governing serious crimes and the public’s expectations of the justice system.

“The possibility of the imposition of a more punitive sentence will go a long way in preserving the credibility of Jamaica’s justice system in the eyes of individuals traumatised by the untimely death of their loved ones,” the Minister noted.

Mr. Chuck said the Prime Minister and the Government are determined to curb the level of violence in the country and, in particular, reduce the number of murders, noting that all measures will be used.