Bar welcomes sentencing guidance

Barbadians are being strongly encouraged to participate in the Barbados Sentencing Guidelines Project.

The advice has come from president of the Barbados Bar Association (BBA) Rosalind Smith-Millar, who says she is in full support of the project as it would help to strengthen the island’s judicial system.

The two-week consultation began today and ends on May 6 and will give judges and magistrates sentencing guidelines for rape, death by dangerous driving and dishonesty offences.

Speaking to Barbados TODAY, Smith-Millar said she fully supported the project, pointing out that the plethora of ideas and comments expected would augur well for the legal system.

She said she was in support of having guidelines that “bring order and fairness to the process”.

“We live in a democracy and no one person really knows everything so it is always good to consult. One might not always agree but at least get some perspective of people who have a particular viewpoint that may be of value, and that would be the public, the lawyers and whoever else feels they have an interest in making sure our democracy functions correctly,” she said.

Smith-Millar said while the BBA would be participating in the project it was too soon to say what its recommendations would be as the guidelines had only been circulated to its members today.

“We received the guidelines today and circulated them to our members so we will have to give them a chance to see what’s in there, how they feel about it and so on. I guess then we’ll see what people come up with, especially the ones who practice in that area,” she said.

Smith-Millar, however, made it clear that the guidelines were not meant to remove the discretion from judges or magistrates.

“My understanding is that the guidelines are to be just that, to provide guidance not to stifle the discretion of a judge based on the circumstances of the individual case, but to the extent that they bring some sort of level playing field where you can have like offences attracting like penalties rather than a free for all. I imagine it would be a good thing.

“It’s not saying that if you do this the penalty is that. It’s saying these are the guidelines that are to inform the decision that the judge arrives at when he is delivering the sentence and to the extent where you have different judges doing the same job it means that no matter which judge you get there is a level of understanding of what to expect,” Smith-Millar said.

She said married with the Maximum Sentence Indicator (MSI) it meant accused persons would be better-placed to decide how they were going to plead. (RB)