Joel Julien

The death penal­ty can be car­ried out in T&T, but the Gov­ern­ment has to take the ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tion and demon­strate the po­lit­i­cal will to have it done, Se­nior Coun­sel Pe­ter Purs­glove has said.

Purs­glove was the le­gal con­sul­tant to for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj charged with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for im­ple­ment­ing the death penal­ty in this coun­try.

He is cur­rent­ly a le­gal con­sul­tant for the Com­mon­wealth Fund for Tech­ni­cal Co-op­er­a­tion.

In 1999, when Ma­haraj was this coun­try's at­tor­ney gen­er­al crime boss Dole Chadee and his gang, as well as con­vict­ed killer An­tho­ny Brig­gs, were hanged.

Brig­gs, who was ex­e­cut­ed on Ju­ly 28, 1999, was the last per­son to be hanged in this coun­try.

"As the for­mer head of the Case Man­age­ment Unit re­spon­si­ble for en­sur­ing that the law­ful penal­ty for mur­der was im­ple­ment­ed, I feel it is my du­ty to in­form mem­bers of the pub­lic and the Gov­ern­ment of the facts con­cern­ing the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the death penal­ty so that de­ci­sions about the death penal­ty may be made in the pub­lic in­ter­est," Purs­glove stat­ed.

With more than 60 peo­ple be­ing killed for the year al­ready, there have been re­newed calls for the reim­ple­men­ta­tion of the death penal­ty as a pun­ish­ment for mur­der.

"There is no mer­it to the ex­cuse that since 2001, af­ter for­mer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Mr Ma­haraj demit­ted of­fice, the fail­ure of gov­ern­ments to im­ple­ment the death penal­ty is all the fault of the Privy Coun­cil and the In­ter­na­tion­al Hu­man Rights Bod­ies," Purs­glove said.

Purs­glove said it is wrong for the In­ter-Amer­i­can Com­mis­sion and the In­ter-Amer­i­can Court of Hu­man Rights to be sin­gled out for "par­tic­u­lar blame".

The In­ter-Amer­i­can Court of Hu­man Rights no longer has any ju­ris­dic­tion over cas­es from T&T, Purs­glove said.

"In the cir­cum­stances, it is im­por­tant for the coun­try to be in­formed as to what suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments have done since 2001 to car­ry out the death penal­ty be­cause it is not true to rep­re­sent to the pub­lic that the ap­peal process­es be­fore the Privy Coun­cil and the Hu­man Rights Bod­ies frus­trat­ed the car­ry­ing out of the death penal­ty. The facts show that the death penal­ty was car­ried out be­fore 2001 and that the death penal­ty could be car­ried out to­day," Purs­glove said.

"The Privy Coun­cil in Pratt v Mor­gan and the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice in lat­er rul­ings sim­ply laid down the gen­er­al rule that the death penal­ty should be im­ple­ment­ed with­in five years of con­vic­tion. Bear­ing that rule in mind, at­tor­ney gen­er­al Ma­haraj es­tab­lished a Case Man­age­ment Unit head­ed by me to put sys­tems in place to car­ry out the death penal­ty. That Case Man­age­ment Unit mon­i­tored all mur­der cas­es be­fore the Mag­is­trates' Court, the High Court, the Court of Ap­peal, the Privy Coun­cil, and the In­ter­na­tion­al Hu­man Rights Bod­ies. The facts show that Dole Chadee, his eight co-ac­cused, and An­tho­ny Brig­gs all used the ap­peal process­es in an at­tempt to frus­trate the car­ry­ing out of the death penal­ty. The work done by the Case Man­age­ment Unit en­sured that they were not per­mit­ted to do so," he said.