Your Land Is Under Arrest: An Opinion By Lolita Davis-Richardson

The Proceeds of Crime Act contains provisions which in effect suspends the constitutional provisions with regard to fundamental rights.

Among other things, section 60 and other sections allow the Governor, the Attorney General and special agencies appointed by and under the control of the Governor and or Attorney General to by-pass the constitutional requirement for due process and basically to abuse the court system to victimise and harass innocent Anguillians, and to forfeit bank accounts, houses and land owned by Anguillians without any court first finding them guilty of a criminal offence, and even in circumstances where the land owner is clearly innocent. If a tenant commits a criminal offence in your apartment, or if someone planted marijuana on you land (unknown to you),your apartment or house or land is guilty. There is no requirement that you should have knowledge or that anyone be charged with a criminal offense.
The Authority can freeze a person’s account, and seize a person’s house and land on the most flimsy reason, under the new civil asset forfeiture laws (civil recovery).
The person will then have to go to court to prove that his/her land is not guilty or his/her bank account is not guilty, even though no charge has been brought against him/her.
If a person cannot prove how he got his house, he is likely to lose it. Most Anguillians built their homes without bank loans or with small bank loans , and a lot of family help. That is not something you can prove and the issue of innocent Anguillians losing their homes to civil asset forfeiture under the control of over zealous or even hateful foreign agents is a real possibility.
It is sometimes referred to as intended unintended consequences.
I would call it the final solution to the Anguilla Problem. Being able to place cautions on the land of Anguillians without charging them with any criminal offence is to destroy our psyche and culture. As one British writer said “Civil Asset Forfeiture without criminal conviction is a law which would have made Hitler Proud” and “Hitler could have asked the British to persecute the Jews under his Nuremberg laws”.
The unseemly haste with which the Attorney General and others want to bully this legislation through the Anguilla House of Assembly, before the people understand the full implication and reach of these draconian and unconstitutional laws is not in keeping with the spirit of openness, transparency and good government.

RECOMMENDATIONS
The passage of the Proceeds of Crime Bill and the other Bills i.e
1. The Payment System Act, 2009
2 .Money Services Business Act, 2009
3. The Criminal Code (Amendment)Act 2009 be delayed for review and further discussion.

To the best of my knowledge the Associations were preoccupied with the Proceeds of Crime Act and did not have the opportunity to study the others in detail.

I am also very dismayed by the statements which are being made about the need to hurry this legislation along.

It is a false statement to say that this legislation has to be passed quickly to get off the OECD grey List. The OECD directives deal with transparency and signing of tax treaties for exchange of information.

If the British Government intends to close down the tax havens anyway, are we throwing away our democratic rights and freedoms for nought?

The unconstitutional “ innovative”, “legislation of the future”, which allows land and houses owned by Anguillians to be taken from them withut due process or compensation is not an OECD directive.

2. The second falsehood is that we can pass this legislation and then amend it.

Anguilla cannot amend legislation if it is the legislation which the Governor and by extension the British want.

3. A third falsehood is that this law is needed to control crime so that people can sleep in their houses at night without being in fear of being robbed. That kind of scare tactic is so unworthy that it does not merit comment. Those are the kind of statements that are made to people who are viewed as ignorant. It is an insult to our intelligence and we should be offended.

But we have heard these things before. It has become the modus operandi for the passage of bad legislation in Anguilla.

Most of us will remember another Attorney General telling the House of Assembly:” if this legislation is not passed today, the ferry will not be able to go to St. Martin tomorrow.”

It is time for this deception of the people to stop. It is time for honesty, openness and transparency. It is time for good governance.

LOLITA DAVIS-RICHARDSON
Concerned Anguillian