Citizens Uprooting Racism in Bermuda has joined other groups in expressing concern about proposed reforms to the Island’s legal system.

The Disclosure and Criminal Reform Bill 2015 and The Criminal Jurisdiction and Procedure Bill 2015 were approved in the House of Assembly despite the concerns of the Opposition and the Bermuda Bar Council.

While Attorney General Trevor Moniz has said the legislation was designed to improve the “broken” legal system, opponents have argued that elements of the legislation are unconstitutional, damaging the right for defendants to remain silent.

In a statement released yesterday morning, CURB said it has become “increasingly concerned” about the proposed criminal law reform, noting the issues voiced by the local lawyers such as Elizabeth Christopher, Jerome Lynch and Larry Mussenden, along with the Bermuda Bar Association.

The statement said: “Section 91 of the Criminal Jurisdiction and Procedure Bill 2015 introduces a new provision wherein if the accused does not answer any questions when interviewed by the police, the jury will be allowed to draw adverse inferences from this refusal.

“According to the Centre for Justice, this and other items included in the legislation will ‘erode our Constitutional Rights’.

“For some time CURB has called for the requirement that all new legislation in Bermuda be required to go through an Equality Impact Assessment to ensure that unintended consequences do not play out for certain segments of our community.

“Such intended consequences can have dire results, as happened with Section 315F of the Criminal Code introduced in 2005, (also believed to be unconstitutional) allowing the police to Stop and Search without probable cause.

“This was demonstrated by the dramatic increase in racial profiling in 2011, when nearly 17,500 stop and searches were carried out, with nearly 90 per cent of those stopped being people of colour.

“CURB has concerns that the proposed legislation may have similar unintended consequences, resulting in negative outcomes for all defendants, but in particular those who are poor and, because of the legacy of the past, predominantly people of colour.”

The organisation said more collaboration and consultation should be carried out on the legislation, noting the concerns voiced by the legal community.

“We support the Centre for Justice and the Bermuda Bar Association’s stance that a number of the criminal law reforms currently proposed will erode the constitutional rights of all Bermudians and urge the Senate to vote against legislation that will undermine Bermudians’ basic rights as protected under Bermuda’s constitution.”

The legislation has been introduced at the Senate, but has yet to be debated in the upper chamber.