Members of the joint select committee of Parliament reviewing the Jamaica Teaching Council (JTC) Bill have agreed to give Solicitor General of Jamaica Marlene Aldred two weeks to further examine the committee’s draft report of their deliberations on the legislation.

When the committee met on Thursday to go through the report, Aldred highlighted several issues with the language of the report and where the subject matters were placed and offered the assistance of the Attorney General’s Chambers in rectifying the document.

She pointed out that in the section dealing with general findings (observations) and recommendations, it addresses the matter of a criminal police record check requirement and a validity time frame for that.

“I don’t think this is a general thing. Whatever is going to be said about the police record should be in the clause that dealt with it. So it is not a general finding. The wording needs a lot more adjustments. So you don’t have a validity time frame of a police record because there is no such thing. Each organisation will determine the period within which they want to accept the police record, but I don’t know what is meant by a validity time frame of a police record, especially in the context of this Bill. I think the paragraph needs to be completely reworked, but it’s also in the wrong place,” she said.

Aldred also said some of the language is not correct; “it’s not forensic”, she said, noting that the Attorney General’s Chambers can provide some support in terms of a rewording and proper placement.

Turning to the section under findings which speaks to the roles and functions of the JTC Council, Aldred said it was not in the right place.

“We have areas in the Bill where this would be better placed, and not as a general finding. So this is not what we usually consider to be a sort of general finding [observation] and recommendation,” she said, noting as well that the language does not really capture the summary of the consideration of the committee on the matter.

Aldred noted, however, that in doing her review, she did not wish to hold up the deliberations of the committee.

Government member Kavan Gayle, in supporting the recommendation, said that for the expedience of the deliberations, he agreed with giving the Attorney General’s Chambers the opportunity to do the review “because what I would want us to do as a committee is to [ensure that] whatever recommendations, that would form part of a report where there’s alignment”.

“So I would allow the chamber’s to do that and then come back to us. I don’t see it as part of holding up the deliberations of the committee,” he said.