Newton speaks about Impact Justice

Twenty-six experts in the area of consumer protection from 12 CARICOM countries gathered at the Accra Beach Hotel over the past two days to report on the stages of implementation of the CARICOM Model Bill on Consumer Protection.

In addition to recommending solutions to any challenges in implementation identified, the main objective of the meeting was to hear the views of consumer protection experts on the draft model regulations prepared by the Improved Access to Justice in the Caribbean (IMPACT Justice) consultant and to discuss what, if any, other regulations were required.

In 2017, IMPACT Justice retained a consultant to review the CARICOM Model Consumer Protection Bill and prepare the necessary Model Regulations to give effect to the provisions in the Bill.

This was after it discovered while looking at the status of Consumer Protection Legislation in the region that up until last year, only eight Member States have Consumer Protection Legislation and of these, only Grenada and St. Lucia have adopted the CARICOM Model Consumer Protection Bill and that across the board, even with those Member States which enacted Consumer Protection Legislation predating the CARICOM Model Bill, no Consumer Protection Regulations are in place.

Speaking on Monday on the work done by her unit, Regional Project Director of the IMPACT Justice Project Professor Velma Newton outlined that it had been responsible for drafting several bills including the Sexual Harassment Bill, Legal Profession Bill, and the Trademark Bill to name a few.

“We have also been doing a fair amount of public legal education in various areas,” she added.

Newton spoke briefly on the Alternative Dispute Resolution work it had also been engaged in, especially mediation and restorative practices.

“The restorative practices programme, we have been focusing on that in schools and have trained hundreds of principals, deputy principals, teachers and guidance counsellors in our region and we are quite pleased of where we are in that component, in that we are training the trainers,” she stated. (JMB)