AG Wilkin at Commonwealth Law Ministers’ Meeting
ATTORNEY-GENERAL AND OF JUSTICE AND LEGAL AFFAIRS MINISTER, SENATOR GARTH WILKIN, IS REPRESENTING ST KITTS AND NEVIS at the four-day Commonwealth Law Ministers’ Meeting in Balaclava, Mauritius.
The meeting is held under the theme: ‘Strengthening international cooperation through the rule of law and the protection of human rights’.
The meeting ends Friday.
The triennial meeting is held to help advance Commonwealth consensus and cooperation and to enable Law Ministers to set clear guidelines on a range of legal, rule of law and justice issues of mutual interest to member countries.
Belize, British Virgin Islands (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 are participating in the meeting.
“These 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,” AG Wilkin said.
“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,” minister Wilkin explained.
He has held discussions with Rwanda’s Justice Minister and Attorney General, Dr. Emmanuel Ugirashebuja, on various legal systems that can be adapted to serve the twin-island Federation, particularly that country’s innovative Legal Aid and Criminal Investigation systems.
Wilkin also negotiated technical support from Farzana Nazir-Mohammed, Director of the Criminal Justice Unit of the Ministry of Legal Affairs in Trinidad & Tobago, for Basseterre’s Criminal Justice Reform project which he initiated since taking office following the August 5th triumph of the St Kitts and Nevis Labour Party (SKNLP) at the polls.
“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, and Commonwealth anti-corruption benchmarks, Wilkin noted.
The justice minister also foresees other benefits through dialogues with experts at the four-day meeting on cybersecurity for elections, freedom of expression, and the Role of the Media.
“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,” Legal Affairs Minister Wilkin said.
Mauritius is an island in the Indian Ocean off the eastern coast of Africa. it is part of the Mascarene islands. The capital is Port Louis.
