As an In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor, I first pro­posed the im­ple­men­ta­tion of Cas­tle Doc­trine leg­is­la­tion on May 26, 2020, dur­ing a Sen­ate de­bate on a pri­vate mo­tion brought by then Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor Sad­dam Ho­sein. The mo­tion sought to con­demn the gov­ern­ment’s fail­ure to ad­dress the es­ca­lat­ing crime sit­u­a­tion in T&T.

At the time, the Dr Kei­th Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion was in pow­er. Stu­art Young served as min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, and Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo was pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate.

In the de­bate, Sen­a­tor Ani­ta Haynes strong­ly crit­i­cised the gov­ern­ment’s in­ac­tion, stat­ing: “The present Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of T&T ought to be re­sound­ing­ly con­demned for its fail­ure to ef­fec­tive­ly deal with the crime sit­u­a­tion, which re­mains both un­ac­cept­able and se­ri­ous.”

Sen­a­tor Tahar­qa Obi­ka spoke of the rape of a young woman in Point Fortin and end­ed his con­tri­bu­tion by ac­cus­ing the gov­ern­ment of “con­tribut­ing to crime by virtue of neg­li­gence,” cit­ing the clo­sure of en­er­gy skill cen­tres and ris­ing un­em­ploy­ment. Iron­i­cal­ly, both sen­a­tors lat­er shift­ed their po­si­tions—ev­i­dence of the po­lit­i­cal games per­sons play.

In my con­tri­bu­tion, I em­pha­sised that crime should nev­er be politi­cised, shar­ing first­hand ex­pe­ri­ences from my work with vic­tims. I re­called a par­tic­u­lar­ly har­row­ing case: a 17-year-old girl raped in front her fam­i­ly by four men. Her fa­ther, a teacher, now strug­gles with de­pres­sion, blam­ing him­self for fail­ing to pro­tect her. Her broth­er, seek­ing pro­tec­tion, has start­ed as­so­ci­at­ing with gangs, and her moth­er has turned to al­co­hol. The rapists were nev­er caught.

These tragedies are not iso­lat­ed. Many crimes—es­pe­cial­ly rapes—go un­re­port­ed. We are fac­ing a crime epi­dem­ic, with ris­ing mur­der rates, do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, and white-col­lar crime.

On Jan­u­ary 20, 2020, the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce de­clared in a me­dia state­ment, “We ARE in a cri­sis of crime,” and urged the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to ac­knowl­edge this re­al­i­ty. The in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty has tak­en no­tice. Trav­el ad­vi­sories from the US, Cana­da, Aus­tralia, and the UK warn their cit­i­zens about crime here. This should stir us to ac­tion. Every­one in this coun­try ei­ther has been or knows some­one who has been a vic­tim of crime.

In that de­bate, I called for Cas­tle Doc­trine leg­is­la­tion, al­low­ing cit­i­zens the le­gal right to de­fend their homes and fam­i­lies. We must not be help­less tar­gets. I ap­plaud­ed then-CoP Gary Grif­fith for his lib­er­al pol­i­cy on grant­i­ng Firearm User’s Li­cences (FULs), par­tic­u­lar­ly en­cour­ag­ing women to arm them­selves for pro­tec­tion. Cit­i­zens must be al­lowed to use jus­ti­fi­able force, in­clud­ing dead­ly force, in self-de­fence with­in their homes.

The Cas­tle Doc­trine recog­nis­es that a per­son’s home—or any legal­ly oc­cu­pied place like a ve­hi­cle—is their sanc­tu­ary. With­in this space, they should have the le­gal im­mu­ni­ty to de­fend them­selves from in­trud­ers with­out fear of pros­e­cu­tion. This in­cludes, in some sit­u­a­tions, the use of dead­ly force.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, my call re­ceived no re­sponse from the gov­ern­ment. I fol­lowed up with a col­umn in Guardian Me­dia on Jan­u­ary 8, 2021, re­it­er­at­ing the need for such leg­is­la­tion. I wrote:

“Hard­work­ing cit­i­zens are easy tar­gets. Teenagers in­volved in crime are in­creas­ing­ly brazen. Home in­va­sions are ris­ing. We must re­claim our coun­try from these crim­i­nal el­e­ments.”

I al­so called on then-at­tor­ney gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi to con­sid­er in­tro­duc­ing Cas­tle Doc­trine laws, which would over­ride the com­mon law du­ty to re­treat and in­stead em­pow­er home­own­ers to stand their ground.

Un­der this doc­trine, ju­rors would con­sid­er both sub­jec­tive and ob­jec­tive el­e­ments of self-de­fence: whether the ac­cused rea­son­ably be­lieved they were in im­mi­nent dan­ger and whether a rea­son­able per­son in the same sit­u­a­tion would act sim­i­lar­ly.

The UK’s Crime and Courts Act 2013 sup­ports this con­cept. It al­lows for rea­son­able force in de­fence, even if, in hind­sight, the re­sponse seems ex­ces­sive. For­mer UK Jus­tice Sec­re­tary Chris Grayling said, “House­hold­ers act­ing in­stinc­tive­ly and hon­est­ly in self-de­fence are vic­tims, not crim­i­nals. When a bur­glar in­vades your home and threat­ens your fam­i­ly, they give up their rights.”

The as­sump­tion is clear: any­one break­ing in­to a home in­tends to com­mit vi­o­lence. Home­own­ers should have the right to de­fend them­selves—in­clud­ing by us­ing pep­per spray or firearms—with­out fear­ing po­lice reprisals.

Our true en­e­my is not each oth­er, but the crim­i­nals liv­ing among us.

To­day, as I wit­ness the Gov­ern­ment fi­nal­ly hold­ing pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions on stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion, I thank Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for giv­ing cit­i­zens this long-over­due op­por­tu­ni­ty.

This is a his­toric mo­ment. For the first time, law-abid­ing cit­i­zens may be legal­ly em­pow­ered to pro­tect them­selves. Let us en­sure this leg­is­la­tion pass­es—not just to re­store jus­tice, but to re­claim the safe­ty of our homes and our na­tion.