The House of Representatives will meet in Belmopan on Friday.

During the session,

parliamentarians will witness the introduction of legislation that will bring some
unprecedented changes to the country's laws. The proposed changes are part of new
anti-crime initiatives by the administration of Prime Minister Dean Barrow. They include
legislation that will remove trial by jury is cases of murder. Prime Minister Dean Barrow
is on record as telling the Guardian newspaper that his reading of the law as it currently
stands; there is no need to make constitutional amendments to put this measure in
place. In addition to removing trial by jury in cases of murder, the proposed changed
would also make it possible for persons accused of attempted murder, conspiracy to
commit murder and abetment of murder to also be tried without the input of a jury of
their peers. As he had publically mentioned before, the Prime Minister will also seek to
close loopholes in the Magistrate's Court where convicted criminals use the system to
get a stay on their sentences via the appeals process. As Love News understands it,
the change will make it so that even if an appeal is lodged, it will not mean the appellant
gets to be out of jail. In addition, the proposed change would make it mandatory that all
appeals have to go to the Supreme Court. Persons on death row will also not be
exempted from the proposed changes. The government intends to amend the
constitution to lift the death penalty above constitutional challenge and will go further by
setting aside long established practice of not hanging anyone on death row for more
than five years. This principle has been in use in the Caribbean since the 1993 Privy
Council ruling in the case of Pratt and Morgan versus the Attorney General of Jamaica.
In that landmark case, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council held that a delay in
excess of five years or more would constitute 'cruel and inhuman treatment' contrary to
the Constitution of Jamaica. But perhaps the biggest change that will come out of
Friday's House Meeting will be the setting in motion of the process that would legalize
what is widely known as preventative detention. Government will introduce an
amendment to the constitution that would allow for preventative detention. Since it is a
constitutional change, preventative detention won't come into effect right away, as the
proposed change will have to go through the House Committee process which includes
public consultations, for a period of not less than ninety days. Thereafter, government
proposes to enact legislation that would explain how the preventative detention will
work. Another of the government’s proposed new crime fighting measures includes the
setting up of a national apprenticeship program where repeat offenders otherwise
known as young people who are habitually in trouble with the law, will not go to prison;
but instead be placed in an institution where they will be taught life skills and given
instruction in practical tradesman ship. Friday's House of Representatives Meeting will
take place in the National Assembly building in Belmopan. The entire proceedings will
be aired live on Love FM starting at ten o'clock in the morning.