Lynford Simpson, Staff Reporter
SENATORS haggled last Friday over several of the provisions contained in the Legal Deposit Act 2002, which repeals and replaces the Books (Preservation and Registration of Copies) Act which was enacted in 1887.
Piloted by Burchell Whiteman, Leader of Government Business in the Senate, the new law provides the legislative framework which will ensure that the intellectual efforts and cultural output of Jamaica in its published forms are collected and preserved as part of the country's national heritage.
It imposes on a publisher, the obligation to deposit with the National Library of Jamaica, or any other library designated as a legal depository, a prescribed number of copies of prescribed categories of documents.
Compensation is payable in respect of copies so deposited, in recognition of the right to property.
While Opposition Senators supported the Bill generally, they took issue with two of the clauses. In the end, they abstained from voting but the Government side used its superior numbers to pass the Bill into law, although nine of the 21 senators were absent.
Excessive fine
The requirement of section five that "every national publisher shall, within the first fourteen days of February, May, August and November in each year, furnish each legal depository with a list of the documents which he has published in the preceding three months," did not find favour with the Opposition.
Senator Anthony Johnson, who himself is a publisher , described the clause as too bureacratic.
He vigorously opposed section 7, clause two, which causes a fine of $50,000 to be levied on any any national publisher who fails to comply with section five.
His Opposition colleague, Senator Dorothy Lightbourne, also described the fine as excessive.
Senator Johnson charged that the local publishing industry was dying and that it was cheaper to print documents overseas.
Senator Whiteman conceded that the local industry was not as efficient as it should be, but stressed that it "cannot be supported at the expense of the beneficiary".
The new law will also facilitate the development and maintenance of the Jamaica National Bibliography as Jamaica participates in the movement towards a universal bibliography control of information.
