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Attorney General John Jeremie. - File photoTHE Administration of Justice (Indictable Proceedings) (Amendment) Bill, 2025 (AJIPA) was passed in the Senate on November 14.
Following several contentious amendments, the new long title of the bill is A Bill to amend the Administration of Justice (Indictable Proceedings), Act 20 of 2011 and to make consequential amendments to the Bail Act Chapter 4:60 and other related matters.
The bill was passed with 24 votes for, six against and no extensions. No independent senators voted against the bill as amended.
The bill would allow justices of the peace (JPs) to have expanded powers to authorise search warrants under the bill. They would also be able to grant station bail for indictable offences.
Several senators said the justice of the peace system needed to be modernised before their powers were extended. They said the current criteria for JPs were not sufficient for the duties they were asked to perform.
Proposals were made for a unified record-keeping system to keep track of warrants, modern legislation to govern JPs, continuing education, and an emergency on-call system for Masters of the court, who would have the necessary knowledge to sign search warrants.
During committee stage of the bill, amendments were proposed by Attorney General John Jeremie, PNM senator Faris Al-Rawi and independent senator Dr Desiree Murray.
One of the points raised by multiple senators during were the need for training in the law for justices of the peace before they were allowed to sign search warrants. Another issue was corruption and unethical behaviour by JPs, along with the possibility of bribery and coercion due to the low monthly honorarium of $1,000.
Jeremie gave the Senate an undertaking that he would refer the matter to the Law Review Committee.
“... to tell us how to treat with better standards of behaviour for JP. We want to bring something that shores up the ethical responsibility of JPs. The legislative agenda is all but set, but I will endeavour to do this during this legislative year.”
He also added a proclamation clause to the bill, which would mean that the section of the bill dealing with search warrants would not be proclaimed at the same time as the rest of the bill.
“The things we believe need to be done is training and we wish to have a look at whether we need to go further with respect to the legislation in terms of the duties and responsibilities of JPs. In the House of Representatives, the Justice Minister accepted that training of JPs should happen, so I will hold my hand on the search warrants clause until we have dealt with that. That does not stop us from proclaiming the parts of the bill that are unobjectionable.”
Al-Rawi queried whether the JPs would be able to sign search warrants to allow for the seizure of stored data and communications. Jeremie said under the provisions of the Data Protection Act, this was specifically excluded from what the JPs could approve.
Al-Rawi said there was a loophole in Clause 5(1A) of the original bill which said warrants could be granted for unspecified premises. He asked, as an amendment to Clause 3, for JPs to be removed from the category of people who would be allowed to grant search warrants.
Jeremie said he did not think it would be possible for a search warrant to be granted without an address being present. Al-Rawi said he was trying to ensure the provision could not be tested in court. The amendment was defeated in a vote.
Murray tried to add an amendment stating that only JPs who have completed standard approved standardised and certified training for issuance of warrants be allowed to sign such, with the same being applied to bail. Jeremie said he could not support the amendment as drafted.
The amendment was defeated with a vote of eight senators for and 22 against the amendment. Seven independent senators voted with the government and two against.
The bill was then read a third time and passed.
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