Premier and Minister for Finance Hon. Andrew Fahie introduced the Audio Video Link Amendment Act 2020 to the House of Assembly yesterday. It was read twice and committed to the committee stage to be examined clause by clause and then passed.

Addressing the HoA, Premier said: “It enables adult defendants to attain certain preliminary sentencing and enforcement proceedings, via video links. There are many areas, and facets of this Bill that will help enhance and also speed up the processes in the courtroom and anything to speed up justice being administered is a positive thing.”

The Premier said he is pleased that the law is being amended at this juncture.

“It is a crucial piece of Legislation, and hopefully, none of us in here have to use it, but you never know. You may be caught away and be sick, and now you can request the court to allow you to appear through this medium, or other means may popup where you have to use this because you never know where you end up in life, but at least what we are doing now is modernizing the ability and capability of the courts to widen their scope and capabilities to handle much more matters that are pending without unnecessary delays,” he said.

The Premier added, “This is innovation, this is progress, and this is your government working for you so that the judiciary can have one more modern piece of legislation and tools to help to reduce in a more timely manner some of the backlogs that exist as a result of the need to have such legislation in place.”

He further said, while the stand-alone Legislation won’t automatically solve the backlog issue, it will assist the process.