Stop trying to rush interception of communications legislation through Parliament and send it to a joint select committee for further consultation.
Opposition Senator Andre Worrell made that recommendation yesterday as the Senate debated the Interception of Communications Bill, 2025.
While Government is proposing changes to the bill, including that all interceptions must be conducted via a warrant issued by a judge, Worrell insisted that the legislation should go before a Joint Select Standing Committee of Governance and Policy Matters.
“This Government has campaigned on a platform of transparency and have set up a number of joint select committees for the purpose of doing what should have been done with this bill,” said the acting president of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP).
“I am saying that this bill should have gone to the Joint Select Standing Committee of Governance and Policy Matters. I would further recommend that, instead of us rushing through to pass this legislation today, that we refer this bill to that committee for wider consultation.
“Because it contains a number of issues that Barbadians are not happy with, and it contains a number of issues which need to be addressed, and we can benefit from the expertise of technocrats who are familiar with this legislation and how it operates.”
He added: “They can invite experts from Jamaica who implemented the legislation in 2002 to speak to the members of the committee and the wider parliamentary group, so as to make us more comfortable with the implementation and the working of the legislation. Because it is one thing to have the legislation on paper, but it is another thing on how you would actually implement it and how it would work.
His hope was that Government “will listen to reason and don’t force through with a heavy hand as though it is an authoritarian state”.
The senator said that while Barbadians were concerned about crime, they were “uncomfortable” with the Interception of Communications Bill.
“I think that in looking at this legislation, before we actually get to the various clauses, we need to remember that Barbados has a history with wiretapping and I believe that that is part of the reason why many Barbadians are uncomfortable with this piece of legislation,” he noted.
“We do have a past, and I would like to walk Barbadians back to the days of 2013 where information broke in this country surrounding wiretapping. I believe that that is the reason why many Barbadians are uncomfortable with this piece of legislation, and for that reason why there has been so much hostility towards [it].”
Worrell said it was not that the DLP would not support wiretapping legislation in the interest of fighting crime in Barbados, but it would do so once it was properly drafted “and we also made provisions that it should be a judge who issues the warrant for the legislation”.
“But what is also of importance for the Democratic Labour Party and the people of Barbados is that the wiretapping is used to submit for surveillance on the criminal element, and not the private individuals and not for political purposes,” he stressed. “That is the main contention which Barbadians have with this piece of legislation. With all of the fancy words by the Leader of Government Business, I do not think that they have addressed the fears which Barbados have with this legislation, because they have not addressed what happened in the past.”
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