Wednesday, December 9 – Government, through the Judicial and Legal Service Commission, has appointed its first chief parliamentary counsel to head the legislative drafting division of the Attorney General’s Chambers.
Ms. Valera Fikile Dlamini brings to the position 22 years of experience as a legislative draftsperson. She holds an LLB degree from the University of the Swaziland and an advanced post graduate diploma (BA) in legislative drafting from the University of the West Indies.
The new chief parliamentary counsel previously served as assistant parliamentary counsel in the Attorney General’s Chambers from 2004 to 2006. Prior to that, she served as the director of legislative drafting in the Attorney General’s Chambers in St. Lucia for nearly four years.
Ms. Dlamini also worked with the law reform commission in the Cayman Islands for one year, before returning to her native Swaziland to serve as a legislative expert, retained by the commonwealth secretariat.
Earlier in her career, Ms. Dlamini had served in senior parliamentary counsel positions in Swaziland, rising to head that country’s drafting division. She also served as acting deputy attorney general for a period of one year in her native country.
Honourable Attorney General, Kathleen Quartey explained, “The move is part of efforts to upgrade the capacity of the drafting division of the chambers to meet the growing demands of government and dedicated divisional management is required for that task.”
Honourable Quartey further explained that the position of chief parliamentary counsel was well acknowledged in the common law jurisdictions of the commonwealth. “As a solicitor general heads the civil division and a director of public prosecutions heads the criminal division, so a chief parliamentary counsel would head the legislative drafting division,” she explained to the Department of Information and Public Relations.
The attorney general, who has overall responsibility for both the civil and legislative drafting divisions, stated “It is about time the BVI, which is a heavily regulated jurisdiction, both expanded and enhanced its legal management positions through such an appointment.”
The attorney general, on behalf of the government has welcomed Ms. Dlamini to the post of chief parliamentary counsel and expressed her expectation of seeing significant gains in the legislative drafting work of the chambers.
The Attorney’s General Chambers is the arm of government responsible for drafting legislation based on the policy decisions of the administration. The chambers serves as the legal advisor to the Government of the Virgin Islands, its agencies and institutions and it also provides legal representation for the Crown in civil matters.
British Virgin Islands News