Project
NIRAS expert, Steven Powles is sworn in as State Counsel. From left to right: Seychelles’ Chief Justice Twomey, together with litigation attorney from the Attorney General’s office, Mrs. Nissa Thompson, Steven Powles, and Deputy Attorney General, David Esparon.
The Seychelles has recently acceded to the World Bank classification of high income countries. This positive development has been accompanied by a need and an ambition to strengthen the country’s Department of Legal Affairs.
Each year, the Department of Legal Affairs is asked to draft or amend on average 55 laws, but this target is not reached. Moreover, given Seychelles commitment to multilateralism and compliance with the intergovernmental Financial Action Task Force (FATC), the Department of Legal Affairs anticipates more requests to law amendments. There are thus capacity constraints, in particular with regard to human resources.
In response to these capacity constraints, the EU has contracted NIRAS to provide a Technical Assistance (TA) aimed at reinforcement of the Department’s and other key institutions’ capacity. The latter is expected to benefit from spill-over effects particularly related to enhanced efficiency in the drafting of laws. The assignment is also aimed at ensuring gender equality and empowerment of women within the Department.
NIRAS assists with:
Amendment of anti-money laundering laws;
Confiscation of proceeds of crime laws;
Amendment of the anti-corruption law;
Production of a “points to prove” handbook for investigation and prosecution of cases on money laundering, confiscation of proceeds of crime and corruption;
Development of a training manual for law officers.
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