Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie is an­tic­i­pat­ing that stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion will be laid in Par­lia­ment af­ter the up­com­ing mid-year bud­get re­view.

How­ev­er, Je­re­mie said the process is still in the ear­ly stages, as the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty has been tasked with as­sem­bling a spe­cialised com­mit­tee to pro­vide him with de­tailed in­struc­tions for draft­ing the leg­is­la­tion.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al ex­plained, “I asked them to get the com­mit­tee es­tab­lished by the end of June. And if that is done, I’m hop­ing that I can get some rec­om­men­da­tions be­fore Par­lia­ment is re­cessed. So, some­time af­ter the mid-year bud­get re­view and be­fore we re­cess. That’s what I’m look­ing at.”

The Gov­ern­ment has yet to an­nounce a spe­cif­ic date for the mid-year re­view but the Prime Min­is­ter in­di­cat­ed it could be some­time in June.

Ef­forts to ask Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der which stake­hold­ers would be en­gaged in the process were un­suc­cess­ful as calls to his mo­bile phone went unan­swered yes­ter­day.

Je­re­mie said he hopes to bring the Bill for de­bate dur­ing this par­lia­men­tary term be­cause he an­tic­i­pates that some items in the leg­is­la­tion will need a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty ap­proval.

“You need to plan for that. I sus­pect that there are some ob­vi­ous things which may en­gage that pro­vi­sion in the Con­sti­tu­tion if you want to re­al­ly have ag­gres­sive laws. So, we’ll see,” Je­re­mie ex­plained.

Some Bills brought to Par­lia­ment in­fringe on rights es­tab­lished in the Con­sti­tu­tion and must be passed by a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty.

Giv­en that this leg­is­la­tion will be nov­el to Trinidad and To­ba­go, Je­re­mie was asked if ex­ist­ing laws in for­eign ju­ris­dic­tions will be analysed to in­form this coun­try’s pro­posed laws.

Je­re­mie an­swered, “I am wait­ing for the com­mit­tee to do its work. They will give me in­struc­tions, but there are ju­ris­dic­tions where you have leg­is­la­tion like this. So, they will look at what the leg­isla­tive prece­dents that ex­ist and they will tell me what they want.”

In its 60-point plan in the por­tion of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ man­i­festo ded­i­cat­ed to the crime sit­u­a­tion, a stand-your-ground law is item num­ber one.

It had been a main pil­lar of Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s cam­paign. Since April 2023, Per­sad-Bisses­sar vowed to put in­to this coun­try’s laws, the le­gal prin­ci­ple that al­lows a per­son to use force in self-de­fence with­out re­treat­ing.

Dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing of Par­lia­ment last Fri­day, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les was asked if her mem­bers would sup­port such leg­is­la­tion when it comes for de­bate.

Beck­les said, “The most im­por­tant thing for me is to get a clear pic­ture on what ex­act­ly is the pol­i­cy and I main­tain my po­si­tion of a will­ing­ness to col­lab­o­rate. We know the ques­tion of crime, we know the ques­tion of peo­ple com­plain­ing, for ex­am­ple about the po­lice and the length of time that things take. At the end of the day I am wait­ing on the pol­i­cy, I am wait­ing on the piece of leg­is­la­tion so that we can see ex­act­ly what it is and once the leg­is­la­tion is the type that we be­lieve that we can sup­port then we will con­sid­er it ap­pro­pri­ate­ly.”

Mean­while, re­gard­ing the re­peal of prop­er­ty tax, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al said that is com­ing, “very soon.”

“I have to wait on fi­nance (min­istry) to give me in­struc­tions. But, I know that is a pri­or­i­ty mat­ter. So, we’ve al­ready sent the Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty Bill, the re­peal of that to the floor. That should be laid. And there are a cou­ple of oth­er big items. Well, there’s one oth­er big item, a con­tro­ver­sial mat­ter that is go­ing to ac­com­pa­ny that, which I can’t talk about. But, you’ll see it when all the pa­per comes out,” Je­re­mie re­vealed.