Senator Jonathan Wehner Blasts Government for 5-Year Stall of Forensic Services Bill Critical for Solving Crimes

A government cannot claim to be serious about gun crime while the law that would give its own forensic division its legal powers sits undebated for a fifth consecutive year, Senator Jonathan Wehner charged during Monday's Senate debate on the Firearms (Amendment) Bill 2026.

The opposition senator's argument turned on a simple chain of logic he repeated throughout his contribution: "You can't have a sentence to put people in jail for 15 years if they're not convicted of a crime." And convictions, in gun cases, depend on ballistics, DNA and forensic evidence.

Yet, the Antigua and Barbuda Forensic Services (ABFS), he reminded the chamber, was "mandated by the cabinet since 2016," took until 2022 to become operational, and remains "woefully under-resourced, under-staffed, under-resourced on everything you can think of."

A Bill that cannot get its Second & Third Reading

Senator Wehner said the Antigua and Barbuda Forensic Services Bill — drafted, he said, by legal affairs staff and the forensic division's own people since 2022 — has appeared on the House of Representatives' order paper in every parliamentary cycle since, including the recent sitting of the Lower House when the Firearms (Amendment) Bill was passed.

"It continues to happen where the ABFS bill comes [on] the order paper for the lower house for its first reading, and it is expunged from the order paper," he said — contrasting that with the speed Parliament passes legislation when it so chooses: "We know bills that amend laws to allow the government to acquire boats can get their first, second and third reading in one sitting, with the bill presented to members the morning of the sitting."

Reading from page 539 of the 2023 Budget Estimates, Senator Wehner told senators the forensic division itself describes the bill as the instrument that "governs the establishment, the purpose, functions, operations and powers of the forensic services division," submitted to the Ministry of Legal Affairs "to be tabled in parliament and passed."

The consequence, he argued, is extraordinary: "The ABFS now, under the existing law, does not have the required powers, functions, purpose, operations or establishment it needs to conduct its services. And this is something that I find baffling. How can a government say they are so concerned about the state of crime in this country, and they don't even see it fit to do something as simple as to get up in parliament and give the ABFS Bill its first, second and third reading. It's not that the bill is not drafted, Madam President. It's been drafted since 2022."

The Opposition's Theme

Senator Wehner's forensics case landed as the latest instalment of a now-sustained opposition theme. Senator Ashworth Azille had pressed the same morning for the long-promised forensic lab and answers on the ballistics backlog, and Opposition Leader Jamale Pringle asked in the Lower House why a laboratory discussed since 2018 is still not confirmed operational.

Senator Wehner, for his part, was careful to anchor the criticism inside his support for the bill's sentencing regime: "I'm not arguing against that," he said of putting criminals behind bars. "I'm saying let us do what is necessary to ensure that the investigative process within this country — [that] resources are put behind that."