Dataram watch out! Ya soon go ah Merica!

Attorney General and Minister of Affairs, Charles Ramson, is gearing to table in the National Assembly, the Fugitive Offenders (Amendment) Bill that will allow Guyana to lawfully extradite fugitives to Commonwealth or Treaty Territories such as the United States of America.

Under the proposed legislation a person may be extradited from Guyana to any Commonwealth country or treaty territory and prior to the extradition, be committed to, or kept in, custody for the purpose of the extradition providing the criteria has been satisfied. The United States is a treaty territory
The new legislation, if approved, also points out that the right to complain of infractions, if any, in the extradition arrangements lies in the asylum state and the person whose extradition is sought is not entitled so to complain to the Court in any proceedings.

Furthermore, the treaty between Guyana and the United States does not prevent the United States from extraditing Guyanese citizens to a third country, something that had been pronounced on by the Guyana Court of Appeal.

Chief Justice Chang had recently handed down a ruling to this effect, much to the displeasure of the United States.

Recently a British legal expert, Queens Counsel Paul Garlick, when asked about the treaty, said that Guyana inherited many of its laws from the British.