Published 23 November 2022
Basseterre
Buckie Got It St. Kitts and Nevis News Source
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Minister of Justice & Legal Affairs Attends Commonwealth Law Ministers’ Meeting in Mauritius
Basseterre, St. Kitts and Nevis, November 23, 2022: During the week of November 22 to 25, 2022
Attorney-General and Minister of Justice and Legal Affairs, Senator the Hon. Garth Wilkin is
representing the Federation at the Commonwealth Law Ministers’ Meeting in Balaclava, Mauritius
under the theme: “Strengthening international cooperation through the rule of law and the
protection of human rights.”
In line with the theme, the primary objective of Meeting, held every 3 years, is to advance
Commonwealth consensus and cooperation and to enable Law Ministers to set clear directions on a
range of legal, rule of law and justice issues of mutual interest to member countries.
Law Ministers and Senior Legal Officers from other Commonwealth Caribbean territories are
present: Belize, BVI, Grenada, Jamaica, St Vincent & The Grenadines, Trinidad & Tobago, as well as
representatives of the 56 independent countries that make up the Commonwealth in Africa, Asia,
the Americas, Europe and the Pacific.
The Attorney General stated that “[t]hese meetings are extremely important for small island states
like ours, because we lack the human capacity to develop all of the necessary complex systems and
laws to preserve and enhance the rule of law. For example, we have no National Computer
Emergency Response (“CER”) Structure, a need given the proliferation of international cybercrimes. I
promise to come back home with the best practice policies and model law to implement a CER Team
and National Cybercrime Response Plan with the assistance of Hon. Konris Maynard, Minister of
ICT.”
The Attorney-General has also held discussions with Hon. Minister of Justice and Attorney General,
Dr. Emmanuel Ugirashebuja, of Rwanda about various legal systems that can be adapted to serve
our people in St Kitts & Nevis, particularly their innovative Legal Aid and Criminal Investigation
systems and negotiated technical support from Farzana Nazir-Mohammed, Director of the Criminal
Justice Unit of the Ministry of Legal Affairs in Trinidad & Tobago, for our Criminal Justice Reform
project which he initiated since taking office.
He continued: “Those are just day one benefits. I anticipate even more productive conversations and
commitments over the next few days as we discuss various topics, including People Centred Justice;
The Future of Our Courts; Law, Climate Change and Food Security; Commonwealth Anti-Corruption
Benchmarks; Cybersecurity for Elections: A Commonwealth Guide on Best Practice; and Freedom of
Expression and the Role of the Media, to name a few. We must piggyback on the intellectual
advancements and model structures of our Commonwealth brothers and sisters, so that we can
create bespoke systems that benefit our people.”
