BREAKING: St. Lucia Government standing ground: COVID-19 Bill will not be deferred; AG says there was sufficient consultation

A last minute attempt by the Bar Association of Saint Lucia to have the COVID-19 (Prevention and Control) Bill deferred has failed. The Bill— which aims to “regulate the containment of the spread of COVID-19 in Saint Lucia in the interests of public safety, public order and public health”— is scheduled to be debated at Tuesday’s House of Assembly sitting. In a statement on Monday night, the Bar Association indicated that a request was made to Prime Minister Allen Chastanet, Attorney General Stephen Julien and House Speaker Andy Daniel, to defer the Bill pending public consultation, and review and comment from the association.

“The Bar Association was not consulted on this Bill. The passing of such an important Bill through all stages at this one sitting of Parliament without stakeholder consultation is unacceptable,” the association said.

“The Government of Saint Lucia would have had ample time to undertake the necessary consultation on this Bill and we should under no circumstances accept a compromise of our rights and civil liberties due to this lack of understanding of the necessity of public consultation, our democracy and the Rule of Law.”

Prime Minister and Attorney General respond

Speaking to reporters outside Parliament building on Tuesday morning, the prime minister said that the Bill is a replacement to the state of emergency (SOE) which ends on Wednesday. He says that the government has no idea when COVID is going to end, and therefore Saint Lucia must remain on high alert.

Speaking on the Bar Association’s request, Chastanet said: “I only saw it very late last night. Certainly it was an interesting letter. I don’t think that there’s anything that the Bar Association pointed to that would cause us to change direction at this point. I was a little bit taken aback because when I called up other lawyers, I realized that the Bar Association itself had not consulted its own members, and there certainly seemed to be a varied mood of the interpretation of what was being done.”

Chastanet also had one question: How can you argue with success?

“The Saint Lucia government has done what it’s supposed to do, it’s protected the lives of Saint Lucians. No one has died from COVID here since its inception. We’ve only had 27 cases, we’re considered to be the best in the Caribbean; one of the best in the world,” he said. “And more importantly, we’ve done so while opening up the economy…This is a necessary piece of legislation to continue doing what we’ve already been doing, and we already have the evidence to show that it has been very successful.”

Meanwhile Attorney General Stephen Julien came out in strong defence of the Bill. Stressing that the government needs to protect Saint Lucians, the AG insisted that there was sufficient consultation with public health officials and technocrats. He indicated that the Bill was not something that he sat in his office and drafted on his own, and assured Saint Lucians that no effort was spared to get as much consultation as they could have. (He was unable to say if the Bar Association executive was consulted).

“I could give you the assurance that everything taken into consideration — time and the need to protect the citizenry — that this thing was done with sufficient consultation. What I could assure ya’ll is that this Bill was in circulation from last week and everyone had an opportunity to consume it. However, I need to reiterate that because of time and because of the national need, we could not have consulted with everyone.”

Julien told reporters that “public health officials and other technocrats” were consulted, and that “over 200 years of legal practitioners experience” went through the Bill. Most of the contents of the Bill, he said, appeared in previous statutory instruments.

“I could say to you that attorneys of quite a lot of experience have had sight of it [the Bill], I can’t speak to the executive of the Bar,” the AG said. “This product is the consummation of the efforts of the technocrats who have the responsibility for protecting the citizenry as it pertains to health, tourism, safety, you name it. In fact the majority of the consultation which took place was in that context.”

Pointing out that the SOE ends on Wednesday, he stressed, “We have a responsibility to ensure that the safety of our citizens is maintained… We have a responsibility to ensure that we have the legislative framework within which to operate and within which to protect our people.” Julien says that he is satisfied that the contents of the Act will not be strange or odd to persons who have been following the previous statutory instruments.

The bill is expected to go through all of its stages at today’s House of Assembly sitting. The greater need right now, the AG said, is to protect the citizenry. “We have a long weekend coming up, we could have an outbreak. There may be a short space of time between the sitting of the upper house which is on Thursday, and getting this piece of legislation published. But be that as it may, I want before the end of next week, that we have that law in place.”