– instead they are downloading and printing itBy Latoya GilesThe Ministry of Legal Affairs is accusing some members of the legal profession of downloading and printing copies of the Law Reports in which the ministry has invested millions.According to Justice Claudette Singh, lawyers are not buying the books which the Ministry has made available. The judge said that while the Ministry is happy that reports are online for everyone to see, she is very disheartened at the fact that persons are being so “dishonest”.Justice Singh explained that being online is not something which is “cheap”. The Ministry has to pay “Lexum”, the company that the Ministry uses to be online a hefty sum of over US$10,450 per year for the license.“If the books aren’t bought how would anyone expect the Ministry to generate the income to pay to be online”, she queried.It is hard to get funding from banks to pay for it,Cheap Nike NFL Jerseys, she said. She said that lawyers should buy the book since it’s a service the Ministry is providing.Back in January, the Ministry of Legal Affairs through its Project Secretariat for the Modernization of the Justice Administration System (MJAS) project launched the highly anticipated Law Reports of Guyana.Legal Affairs Minister Anil Nandlall had said that the Law Reports in any society are very instrumental to the development of Jurisprudence and to the advancement of law.According to Nandlall every country has ensured that its law reports are kept in a permanent form. He said that Guyana’s legal system embraces the rule within which courts must act. It is important that we have a report of what is decided to in our country, he added.He said that this helps people within the country to know that the system doesn’t work erratically. According to Nandlall this helps with predictably in society.The Courts have now cleared a 30-year backlog; the law reports cover from 1977 to 2007.The Law Reports was compiled and edited for the years 1977 to 2007 as one aspect of the Modernisation of the Justice Administration System project. The MJAS Project is funded by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) by way of a Loan to the Government of Guyana (GoG) and is implemented by the Ministry of Legal Affairs.The MJAS programme was designed as a hybrid facility comprising a policy based component supported by a policy based loan of US$15M. A further investment and technical support component supported by an investment loan of US$10M was given.The investment component was intended to help implement the policy reform programme and also support initial capacity building activities in the justice sector institutions.Backtrack to September 2012; it was President Donald Ramotar who had gone to the United Nations and urged the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to examine the possibility of reviewing the copyright laws regarding educational materials, especially text books, if the world is serious about making education accessible to all.Ramotar had made the remarks while speaking during the launching of the ‘Education First’ initiative by United Nations Secretary General Ban-Ki-Moon. The initiative is aimed at increasing access to, and the quality of education for children worldwide. Some $1.5 billion was garnered for that programme.Cabinet Secretary Dr. Roger Luncheon had admitted that Government had been buying pirated books from printing firms and companies that photocopy books to offset costs. Five companies had tendered bids worth millions of dollars for the procurement of the pirated books.But printing was halted after Attorney-at-law Andrew Pollard, on behalf of the British Publishers’ Association, filed an injunction in the High Court stopping all local publishing houses from printing and selling the pirated books.
