Legislative change being encouraged

WITH Dominica having recently passed civil assets recovery law, other countries in the Eastern Caribbean as well as Barbados are being encouraged to follow suit.

As such, Attorneys General and judicial heads from throughout the Eastern Caribbean were gathered in Barbados last week Wednesday at the Courtyard Marriott, to familiarise themselves with the concept of civil assets recovery, also known as civil assets forfeiture, which would allow the State to confiscate property of persons if it is derived from the profits of criminal activity or was used to facilitate the commission of a crime.

Kurt van der Walde, Director of the International Narcotics
and Law Enforcement Affairs Section at the US Embassy

According to Kurt van der Walde, Director of the International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Section of the United States Embassy, it has been recognised that a multi-pronged approach is needed to really tackle the transnational criminal elements and, for that reason, the United States Government is working with Barbados and the countries of the Eastern Caribbean to give further thought to implementing legislation that speaks to civil assets recovery.

Speaking with the media last week Wednesday morning ahead of the start of the workshop, van der Walde explained that the workshop is an outgrowth of President Barack Obama’s Caribbean Basin Security Initiative announced in 2009. Through that programme, he explained, the United States has pledged to be an active partner in building citizen security and countering illicit trafficking networks throughout the Caribbean.

“In the United States, in Canada, Australia and increasingly even in Britain, we’ve recognised that you have to take a multi-pronged approach to really attacking these really vicious organisations. So while we’re doing traditional things like providing interceptor vessels to a lot of Eastern Caribbean countries, building law enforcement training skills [and] providing support to drug squads, we are also helping the Eastern Caribbean to modernise its legal structures and bring new legal tools to fight illicit trafficking networks,” he said.

He added, “So today we’ve invited all these very important individuals and they have agreed to learn about our experiences in the US and Great Britain and we are going to talk about ways to implement civil asset forfeiture here in the Eastern Caribbean in ways that are compliant with the legal structures and the norms of the Eastern Caribbean.”

With that in mind, the Director lauded the effort of the Government of Dominica, which in addition to passing the law, created a dedicated forfeiture fund, with defined percentages, which will go towards victim restitution and support for law enforcement and substance abuse treatment.

“So each dollar seized from drug traffickers would go to support those very worthy causes in a time in the region, just like the US, where we’re undergoing a lot of economic strain. This is important to both support law enforcement, while attacking the root of organised crime,” he added. (JRT)