ICC CWC 2007 Sunset legislation heading to Regional Parliaments

CARICOM has given its blessing to the Sunset Legislation proposed for ICC Cricket World Cup 2007.

The Legal Affairs Committee of the regional organisation signed off on the draft of this legislation - officially known as the ICC Cricket World Cup West Indies 2007 Bill - at a meeting in Jamaica last week.

"This in essence means that the Committee - which is constituted by the Attorneys-General of CARICOM - regards the present draft as suitable for submission to the parliaments of the region," explained ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 Senior Legal Counsel, Derek Jones.

"What will now happen is that each of the nine Host Venues will use that draft as a model and produce a piece of legislation for their respective parliaments because there is no one regional authority that can pass this. It has to go through each of the nine parliaments and become law."

Jones disclosed there are regulations "governing a variety of things that need to be done" and it is expected that these, as well as the Sunset Legislation, will be in place "no later than November 2006, although we would prefer to see them (in place) earlier".

Outlining Sunset Legislation's evolution into an Act, the veteran lawyer said: "The draft Bill will be laid in parliament in the respective countries. One would expect there would be a debate and that the normal parliamentary process would be observed and then, hopefully in due course, it would be passed into law."

This specialised legislation is designed to secure the legal framework for next year's Event, including provisions for the control of venues (how their operations will be undertaken and who will be in charge); the control of certain aspects of security and the protection of intellectual property. It will also make ambush marketing illegal.

"Ambush marketing is where people try to poach on the goodwill of an event, either by pretending or suggesting that they are in some way officially connected with it. What this law will do is make ambush marketing both a criminal offence and a civil wrong. The law will provide civil and criminal remedies against ambush marketing," elaborated Jones.

"Any recourse to the civil courts would be your usual civil action - with a plaintiff and a defendant just like any other civil dispute. If it's a criminal offence, the person will be charged in the ordinary way and be brought before a court in the ordinary way and will therefore enjoy all the usual privileges that an accused person would have in relation to any other alleged criminal conduct."

The ICC CWC 2007 official assured there will be an education programme to sensitise Caribbean people about Sunset Legislation, why it is necessary and the fact that it will only have a specific lifetime - from whence comes its name as "the sun starts to set on it as soon as it is passed into law".

"This legislation will expire on June 30, 2007. It's done that way because there are very special powers in the legislation which are only warranted by the special nature of the Event. You would not want them hanging around as part of your regular jurisprudence, so the law disappears after the Event," he said.

Jones noted that once people are properly informed and develop a clear understanding of Sunset Legislation they become much less wary of it and recognise that it's not designed "to interfere with the normal operations of people's legitimate commercial interests".

"We must remember what's going to happen here next year is not just a Test match or series. It's a world event and therefore the standards to which it's going to be held are more like that of FIFA World Cups, the Olympics or the Commonwealth Games.

"There are going to be some changes but people don't have to be afraid of those changes and once they are explained, my experience has been that people are not hostile; just curious about how it's going to work."

ICC CWC WI 2007 Inc. has begun its sensitisation campaign with speaking engagements and interviews throughout the Host Venues and this will continue until tournament time. In keeping with this mandate, Jones updated Permanent Secretaries and Legal Officers in the Jamaica Government this morning on the progress of Sunset Legislation. He will be involved in a series of meetings and media interviews on the same topic in Grenada next Monday and Tuesday.