At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi’s hope to have lit­i­ga­tion be­fore the Ju­di­cia­ry to be­gin the process of re­leas­ing some non-vi­o­lent in­mates due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic did not ful­ly ma­te­ri­alise Fri­day.

Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence on Thurs­day, Al-Rawi claimed the pro­posed law­suit to help fa­cil­i­tate the process would be filed by that af­ter­noon or Fri­day.

How­ev­er, when con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, sources close to the le­gal team from the AG’s Of­fice, led by Se­nior Coun­sel Fyard Ho­sein, said they were still com­plet­ing the process up to late Fri­day.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the team may have to do fur­ther con­sul­ta­tions with stake­hold­ers such as the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP), Court Reg­is­trar and Pub­lic De­fend­ers’ Di­vi­sion be­fore it is filed.

The process may still be com­plet­ed over the week­end, as the case will most like­ly qual­i­fy for an ur­gent hear­ing un­der re­cent prac­tice di­rec­tions is­sued by the Ju­di­cia­ry dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. Once filed elec­tron­i­cal­ly, any hear­ing sub­se­quent­ly set will take place via video con­fer­enc­ing.

The AG, in a brief in­ter­view yes­ter­day, told Guardian Me­dia that all the in­for­ma­tion was be­ing com­piled by the rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers - so that when the court or­der comes down they would be ready to pro­ceed in a time­ly fash­ion.

Guardian Me­dia al­so un­der­stands that the slight de­lay in the le­gal team com­plet­ing the fil­ing was due to the fact that they were be­ing thor­ough in com­pil­ing a large amount of in­for­ma­tion on each pris­on­er’s case to en­sure re­leas­es can be ex­pe­dit­ed once the court be­gins to hear it.

Speak­ing ear­li­er this week, Al-Rawi not­ed that by pre­lim­i­nary cal­cu­la­tions, the pro­pos­al is ex­pect­ed to af­fect at least 388 non-vi­o­lent re­mand­ed and con­vict­ed pris­on­ers in­clud­ing some mi­nors. He said the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tion will pro­vide vic­tim im­pact state­ments for all cas­es, not­ing that low-risk crim­i­nals with very mi­nor crimes will be con­sid­ered for re­lease. These in­clude those charged with fail­ure to pay main­te­nance, ob­scene lan­guage, pos­ses­sion of mar­i­jua­na less than 30 grammes, pos­ses­sion of a smok­ing de­vice, cul­ti­vat­ing mar­i­jua­na as well as mo­tor ve­hi­cle and road traf­fic of­fences. He not­ed that in the vast ma­jor­i­ty of cas­es be­ing con­sid­ered for re­lease, the court grant­ed bail but pris­on­ers con­tin­ued to lan­guish in prison at a high cost to tax­pay­ers be­cause they were too poor to raise the bail.

Al-Rawi ex­plained that there were 3,959 peo­ple in jail.

“Of that fig­ure, 3829 are men 130 are women. In that 3959, we al­so have peo­ple that will not be ac­cess­ing bail in any cir­cum­stances. A to­tal of 1,115 are charged with mur­der. As you know we have 10 pris­ons, and two child re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion cen­tres and an Im­mi­gra­tion de­ten­tion cen­tre. That cen­tre is han­dled by the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and is han­dled out­side of court process­es,” Al-Rawi said.

He not­ed that the Gov­ern­ment had come up with a con­cept pa­per hav­ing looked at what was be­ing done in the pris­ons of sev­er­al Cari­com coun­tries as well as oth­er ju­ris­dic­tions in Eu­rope, the Mid­dle East and oth­er re­gions.

Al-Rawi not­ed that those in­mates on Re­mand await­ing bail will be tak­en be­fore the court to get bail and those who got bail for mi­nor of­fences but could not raise the bail will al­so be con­sid­ered for re­lease. Those who are con­vict­ed will have to ap­ply to the Mer­cy Com­mit­tee of the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent to qual­i­fy for re­lease once rec­om­men­da­tions are made by var­i­ous rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Al-Rawi said they have al­ready done the re­search and have iden­ti­fied 149 peo­ple who are on Re­mand for re­lease, while 239 peo­ple who are serv­ing sen­tences for mon­i­tor of­fences are al­so be­ing con­sid­ered for re­lease.