Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion (DO­MA) pres­i­dent Gre­go­ry Aboud last night said it was "un­think­able" that the Po­lice Ser­vice and the Ju­di­cia­ry, which has ju­ris­dic­tion over the lo­ca­tion of the court hear­ings, con­tin­ue to in­con­ve­nience thou­sands of cit­i­zens by the traf­fic re­stric­tions.

"These cas­es could be re­moved to an­oth­er lo­ca­tion where the hear­ings would not dis­rupt the en­tire city of Port-of-Spain," Aboud said, as he spoke about the dis­rup­tions which will be in ef­fect Fri­day due to two high pro­file cas­es at the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates' Court.

"Many of the peo­ple who make these de­ci­sions to dis­rupt our lives do not face that same dis­rup­tion in their lives be­cause they have spe­cial pass­es and spe­cial es­corts while thou­sands of peo­ple will sit in their cars to­mor­row (to­day) for hours be­cause of their de­ci­sions."

Aboud said DO­MA had writ­ten to Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie and copied then act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Stephen Williams about three months ago, af­ter the traf­fic re­stric­tions were im­posed with­out no­tice at the start of the pre­lim­i­nary en­quiry in­to See­ta­hal's mur­der. They wrote again about a month ago rais­ing se­ri­ous con­cerns about the de­ci­sion, which prompt­ed the Po­lice Ser­vice to is­sue pub­lic no­tices about the traf­fic re­stric­tions.

He said the de­ci­sion to cor­don off a sec­tion of Duke Street, a main artery which ac­com­mo­dates traf­fic flow­ing from East to West Port-of-Spain, re­sult­ed in peak-time traf­fic be­ing backed up as far as Barataria, while the clo­sure of St Vin­cent Street had caused grid­lock traf­fic as far north as St Ann's. Aboud said the dis­rup­tion of traf­fic along Aber­crom­by Street, which mo­torists use to head north out of the city, had left dri­vers strand­ed for hours along South Quay and af­fects traf­fic all the way to the East­ern Main Road in Laven­tille.

"The ac­cused are al­leged to have com­mit­ted a crime that is so se­ri­ous as to dam­age the rep­u­ta­tion and so­cial fab­ric of the coun­try. But as an ad­di­tion­al in­jury, their tri­al at the Mag­is­trates' Court in Port-of-Spain is dam­ag­ing the eco­nom­ic health of the city of Port-of-Spain and dis­rupt­ing the lives of or­di­nary peo­ple, in­clud­ing thou­sands of school chil­dren who at­tend class­es in the en­vi­rons of Rich­mond Street, St Vin­cent Street, Aber­crom­by Street, Pem­broke Street and Park Street," he said.

Aboud said DO­MA had sug­gest­ed to the CJ that crim­i­nal court cas­es that re­quire "ul­ti­mate se­cu­ri­ty" be re­lo­cat­ed to a re­mote lo­ca­tion where that type of se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ment can be pro­vid­ed with­out "pun­ish­ing the peo­ple of Port-of-Spain."

Schools af­fect­ed

Maria Regi­na Grade School

St Joseph's Con­vent

Bish­op's Anstey High School

St Ur­su­la's Girls' An­gli­can Pri­ma­ry School

Moul­ton Hall Methodist School

St Crispin's Girls' An­gli­can Pri­ma­ry School

Rich­mond Street Boys' An­gli­can School

Sa­cred Heart Boys' Pri­ma­ry School

Trin­i­ty Ju­nior Pri­vate School

Busi­ness af­fect­ed

Guardian Life

Sagi­cor Gen­er­al

Al­gi­co Plaza

In­fotech Caribbean

T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee

JD Sel­l­i­er law firm

MG Daly and Part­ners law firm

Vit­rius law firm

Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment

First Cit­i­zens

Is­land Fi­nance

Cameron Au­to Sup­plies

Rit­u­als Cof­fee House

Na­tion­al Lot­ter­ies Con­trol Board

Mano's Food Court

JSL In­ter­na­tion­al Trinidad