By Robert Hart, Staff Reporter
Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, A.J. Nicholson, in conversation with the Ambassador-designate of the Republic of the Philippines, Regina Irene P. Sarmiento, when she called on him recently at the Ministry in Kingston. - Contributed
UNLIKE LAST week when only three members were present for a sitting of the Joint Select Committee examining the Family Property (Rights of Spouses) Bill, a far more representative, 10 of 13 members, turned up for Wednesday's meeting.
This allowed the committee to make significant progress in its clause by clause examination of the Bill.
The committee, chaired by Senator A.J. Nicholson, the Attorney-General, managed to sift through and end the day at clause (12). It was finally overcoming clauses (6) and (7), which had stymied progress for the previous three meetings.
"I think we have made good progress. I did tell you that once we got over the hurdle of (6) and (7), that we would move much faster," a clearly delighted Senator Nicholson told the committee.
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The Attorney-General added that he expected the committee to meet about three more times and that he wanted to get a report to Parliament by the first or second week of December.
During the meeting, Senator Nicholson at times appeared to be making thinly-veiled references to the absence, last Thursday, of 10 of the committee members. Their absence had prevented the committee from coming to a decision on the particularly contentious clause 7 (b) which it intended to delete from the Bill seeking "to provide new rules for the division of property between spouses after a breakdown of their union."
But on Wednesday, the committee went along with the proposal put forward last week and continued through the Bill, unable to find any other major sources of debate.
