KINGSTON, Jamaica – The Joint Select Committee (JSC) of Parliament which has reviewed the Bill seeking to create a single anti-corruption agency, the Integrity Commission, has decided against giving the proposed Act its own definition of corruption.

The committee has, instead, decided that the Bill should continue to use the definition of an “act of corruption”, which it adopted from the current Corruption (Prevention) Act.

It suggested that the need for a definition of corruption in the new Act could be revisited after the Act is approved.

In its report tabled in Parliament recently, the committee, chaired by Minister of Justice Senator Mark Golding, noted that a proposal had been made to the committee that “act of corruption” should be more comprehensively defined in the new Bill.

But, the committee reported that it had the benefit of a paper prepared by the Legal Reform Department and the Attorney General’s Chambers, setting out the approach taken in the Inter-American and United Nations Conventions against Corruption, and comparable legislation from Sierra Leone, Kenya and Trinidad and Tobago.

“The issue was extensively discussed, and it was pointed out that the definition in the Bill essentially adopts the provisions amounting to acts of corruption in the Corruption (Prevention) Act, 2008, which are not dissimilar to the treatment in the corresponding provisions in Sierra Leone’s Anti-Corruption Act,” the committee reported.

However, the JSC stated that it would pursue a change to Clause 2(b) of the definition in the current Bill to read that: “an offence relating to the conduct of any person that constitutes an abuse or misuse of his office (whether or not within the public sector) for the purpose of conferring a benefit or advantage to himself or another person, being an offence arising under any other enactment.”

Clause 2, or the interpretation clause of the current Bill, states that an “act of corruption” is: “an Act which constitutes¬ (a) an offence under the Corruption (Prevention) Act; or (b) an offence relating to corruption under any other enactment”.

The committee also noted that Section 58 of the current Bill requires that it be reviewed from time to time, and suggested that the need for a definition could be revisited after its implementation.

Balford Henry