Rights of Spouse Act in new legislative year
THE Rights of Spouse Act, a legislation which will allow for the equitable distribution of property acquired in a common-law union after it has ended, is to be introduced in the new legislative year.
“A law is coming, that if a man and a woman live together for five years or more and there is a split in the relationship, then it must be the duty of the court to decide how the accumulation of property is to be shared”, Minister of Justice and Attorney General, AJ Nicholson said.
He was speaking at a special meeting of the Middlesex Region Lay Magistrates Association last Wednesday at the Jamalco Great House in Halse Hall Clarendon.
The minister, in an interview with JIS News later, said that one of the objectives of the new law was to make provision for and correct the inequity in distribution of earnings and property that affects the unmarried female population in particular, after there is a termination of the union in which they have served and made significant contributions for a number of years.
Meanwhile, Minister Nicholson told the lay magistraters that in an effort to tackle the scourge of violence in Jamaica, the role of the Justices of the Peace (JPs) would be expanded within the justice system and executed within the communities to help transform the Jamaican society.
He said that JPs would be asked to carry out more work in the areas of mediation, resolution of family disputes and civil matters, monitoring of drug addicts who have passed through the court system and are being rehabilitated, ensuring that public officials keep the oath that they have taken to serve, and ensuring that courts and courthouses are properly maintained.
“Your role in the burnishing of the image of Jamaica, I believe in many respects has been underplayed”, he told the JPs.
He also mentioned that an initiative was to be implemented to upgrade the training of the JPs to include new acts such as the Municipalities Act, the Corruption Prevention Act and amendments to other Acts in order to ensure that they become more effective in the administration of justice.
The justice minister pointed out that the community agenda in Jamaica was to be given special attention by them in order to help retrieve the country from criminal activities.