Deputy Speaker of the House of Assembly (HoA) of the Virgin Islands Honourable Stacy R. Mather (AL) has issued a stern warning over the proposed overhaul of the Police Act, citing grave concerns about human rights infringements and systemic neglect of the territory’s most vulnerable citizens. Photo: YouTube

According to Deputy Speaker Hon Stacy R. Mather (AL), a society must be judged by how it treats its most defenceless. Photo: VINO/File

He was at the time giving his contribution to the debate in the HoA on April 10, 2025, during the continuation of the Sitting of the 2nd Session of the 5th House on the Review of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Bodies in the British Virgin Islands, Volume II: A Roadmap for 2025 to 2035.

Madness

Deputy Speaker Mather denounced the overreach of the newly proposed legislation intended to repeal and replace the Police Act Revised Edition 2013, describing the draft bill as “madness,” asserting that it would give the Royal Virgin Islands Police Force (RVIPF) powers comparable to those in England and Wales, “but with insufficient safeguards to the people's right under Article 8 of the ECHR, which is the European Convention on Human Rights.”

“This legislation was drafted to infringe on the rights of the people of this territory to the extent that it went further than Wales and the UK and even European countries; Virgin Islands, wherever you are hearing my people, you are hearing my voice, understand that it is time to read these documents. It is time to pay attention to what is going on.”

UK overreach

Referring to a previous public and parliamentary debate over the controversial bill, Honourable Mather recalled, “You remember all that debating in this House and outside of this House about this police bill? And how invasive it was for the human rights of our people? But when they came in here, they said we’ve got to do it… and then they said we can’t do it.”

He, as such, expressed frustration at the lack of legislative urgency on matters of greater relevance to the Virgin Islands’ people.

“That seemed like something a little bit more urgent that needs to find itself inside here,” he said, referencing both the Police Bill and constitutional reform. “It’s taking too long.”

Additionally, he noted that there obtains an absence of cohesive safeguarding protocols across essential government agencies and lamented the lack of a clear definition of vulnerability within the police force and criticised the fragmented data collection among departments such as Social Development, the BVI Health Services Authority, the Virgin Islands Prison Service, Customs, and the Ministry of Education, Youth Affairs and Sports.

RVIPF Public Unit

“This means that the Royal Virgin Islands Police Force doesn’t have information about all incidents that involve vulnerability. The Royal Virgin Islands Police Force should set up a public unit to manage investigations related to vulnerable victims and make sure their needs are met.”

According to the Deputy Speaker, a society must be judged by how it treats its most defenceless.

“You are measured in our society by how you treat the weakest, the most vulnerable. That’s why God let me become an old man with a stick... once a man and twice a child.”

With this in mind, he pointed to the lack of follow-through on budgetary provisions intended for a Human Rights Commission, and lamented that vital social protections and public assistance remain unreformed and underfunded and quipped, “Maybe the UK should have spent some money on that. Maybe the UK should have given us a report on NHI. That would help us.”