With a State of Emer­gency now of­fi­cial­ly in ef­fect, at­tor­ney Criston J Williams says le­gal ac­tion is on the ta­ble, as he blasts what he de­scribes as years of sys­temic fail­ures in the coun­try’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.

Yes­ter­day, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, in ex­plain­ing why the SoE was de­clared, said in­tel­li­gence point­ed to an or­gan­ised crime syn­di­cate prepar­ing to car­ry out rob­beries, kid­nap­pings and as­sas­si­na­tions on ju­di­cial, gov­ern­ment and law en­force­ment fig­ures.

The com­mis­sion­er said the plot was be­ing or­ches­trat­ed by some in prison and out­side prison, and it led to the re­moval of sev­er­al gang lead­ers from prison to De­fence Force head­quar­ters in Ch­aguara­mas.

Williams, who rep­re­sents sev­er­al in­mates on re­mand, told Guardian Me­dia that mount­ing frus­tra­tions over ex­ces­sive court de­lays, pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al back­logs, and a lack of trans­paren­cy in in­tel­li­gence re­ports were fu­elling the very un­rest the SoE aims to con­tain.

“We’re al­ready ex­plor­ing in­ter­na­tion­al av­enues,” he said. “Our clients have in­struct­ed us to reach out to a UK law firm that spe­cialis­es in ar­bi­trary and un­law­ful de­ten­tion, and we’re in talks with Cana­di­an le­gal ex­perts re­gard­ing the Jor­dan de­ci­sion, a case that re­set their en­tire crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem when de­lays be­came in­tol­er­a­ble.”

Williams ar­gued that the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sue didn’t be­gin on the streets but in the courts.

“In an emer­gency, the symp­toms may be vis­i­ble in the streets, but the root caus­es of­ten start in the court­room,” he said.

“There are peo­ple be­hind bars, un­tried, for years. That’s more than a le­gal fail­ure. It’s a hu­man rights is­sue. And yes, it’s a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sue.”

Williams called for a full au­dit of the re­mand pop­u­la­tion, in­clud­ing how long in­di­vid­u­als have been held with­out tri­al, and whether the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) has the ca­pac­i­ty to process those cas­es in a time­ly man­ner.

“The DPP has al­ready ad­mit­ted the of­fice is un­der-re­sourced. So why haven’t we seen a re­set in the sys­tem? How many more years of de­lay must peo­ple en­dure?”

He al­so took aim at long­stand­ing fail­ures to block crim­i­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tion from in­side the prison.

“We’ve heard for years that ‘big fish’ be­hind bars are giv­ing or­ders via cell phones. Mon­ey was spent on jam­mers. Are they even work­ing? If this State of Emer­gency doesn’t fi­nal­ly fix that, then what’s the point?” he asked.

Williams claimed at least one in­di­vid­ual, re­port­ed­ly cit­ed in re­cent se­cu­ri­ty in­tel­li­gence as a threat, has a court mat­ter that has been pend­ing for years. He said this showed the dan­ger­ous link be­tween court de­lays and na­tion­al in­sta­bil­i­ty.

The at­tor­ney raised fur­ther con­cerns about the role of the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency, ques­tion­ing the lack of trans­paren­cy in its re­cent re­ports.

“If this is an in­tel­li­gence-dri­ven emer­gency, then where are the SSA re­ports from 2022 to 2024?” he asked.

“We con­firmed that re­ports were sub­mit­ted to then-min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds but were nev­er laid in Par­lia­ment.”

Williams’ firm has since writ­ten to the Speak­er of the House, call­ing for Hinds to ap­pear be­fore a par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee about the re­ports.

“The last SSA re­port laid in Par­lia­ment was from 2021 to 2022. That’s un­ac­cept­able. If there’s no scruti­ny of in­tel­li­gence, the pop­u­la­tion can be mis­led un­der the guise of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty,” Williams warned.

With a new Min­is­ter of Jus­tice now in of­fice, Williams urged the Gov­ern­ment to make jus­tice re­form a pri­or­i­ty, not just law en­force­ment.

“Talk to the peo­ple in cus­tody. If in­tel­li­gence says they’re be­hind the un­rest, then find out why. The sys­tem is bro­ken. Fix it be­fore it breaks the coun­try.”

He in­sist­ed the is­sue is no longer one of in­ef­fi­cien­cy but of con­sti­tu­tion­al rights.