Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Home In­va­sion (Self-De­fence and De­fence of Prop­er­ty) Bill 2025, which will be de­bat­ed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to­mor­row, pro­pos­es a $500,000 fine plus 20 years’ jail for per­pe­tra­tors, with a $750,000 fine and 25 years’ jail if they are a gang mem­ber or act in the pres­ence of a se­nior cit­i­zen or child.

The of­fence of home in­va­sion is pro­posed for a wide cat­e­go­ry, in­clud­ing those fraud­u­lent­ly rep­re­sent­ing them­selves as law en­force­ment of­fi­cers or rep­re­sent­ing any oth­er pub­lic or pri­vate en­ti­ty to gain en­try to a dwelling, or those in­vit­ed in­to an oc­cu­pied dwelling who fail to leave im­me­di­ate­ly on be­ing asked by an oc­cu­pant to do so.

Per­pe­tra­tors will al­so be li­able to be con­vict­ed of mur­der if they kill an oc­cu­pant or are par­ty to this.

The Home In­va­sion bill is on a heavy Par­lia­ment agen­da to­mor­row when both the Sen­ate and the House meet sep­a­rate­ly on dif­fer­ent bills.

The Sen­ate meets at 10 am in its South Cham­ber of the Red House to de­bate the Vir­tu­al As­sets and Vir­tu­al As­sets Providers Bill 2025, ac­cord­ing to gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials.

It was passed with amend­ments in the House last Fri­day, with­out the sup­port of the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM).

The PNM lat­er ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of adding 48 pages of amend­ments, which changed the scope of the bill and made it “im­pos­si­ble to re­view, analyse and par­tic­i­pate mean­ing­ful­ly in clause-by-clause ex­am­i­na­tion.” The PNM said that it rep­re­sent­ed “yet an­oth­er dan­ger­ous de­vel­op­ment in par­lia­men­tary democ­ra­cy and prac­tice, plus a con­tin­u­ing pat­tern of dis­re­spect by the UNC Gov­ern­ment for Par­lia­ment’s Stand­ing Or­ders and the peo­ple’s elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives.”

The House meets at 1.30 pm to­mor­row with Op­po­si­tion ques­tions for the Prime Min­is­ter, plus 24 queries for Min­is­ters, as well as the home in­va­sion bill.

The nine-clause bill es­tab­lish­es the of­fence of home in­va­sion and pro­vides that a per­son has no du­ty to re­treat when act­ing in self-de­fence or de­fence of his prop­er­ty and has the right to stand his ground to “use de­fen­sive force, in­clud­ing dead­ly force, to pro­tect him­self, his prop­er­ty or an­oth­er per­son in his dwelling house.”

“Dead­ly force” is de­fined in the bill’s ex­plana­to­ry notes as “any use of force that is like­ly to cause or cre­ates a sub­stan­tial risk of caus­ing death or griev­ous bod­i­ly harm, in­clud­ing, but not lim­it­ed to, the dis­charge of a firearm.”

Once li­able to con­vic­tion on in­dict­ment, the penal­ty will be $750,000 plus 25 years’ jail if the cul­prit is (a) act­ing as a gang mem­ber; (b) par­tic­i­pant in an or­gan­ised crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty; or (c) in the pres­ence of a child, se­nior cit­i­zen, per­son with a dis­abil­i­ty or oth­er­wise vul­ner­a­ble per­son.

Where a per­son kills/is par­ty to the killing of an­oth­er in the course of car­ry­ing out a home in­va­sion, he/any oth­er per­son en­gaged in this is li­able to be con­vict­ed of mur­der, even if the killing was done with­out in­tent to kill or cause griev­ous bod­i­ly harm.

The bill will re­quire a three-fifths spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty vote for pas­sage in both the House and Sen­ate. While the Gov­ern­ment may have the re­quired 24 votes in the House (as it has 26 MPs and the two TPP MPs), two more votes are re­quired in the Sen­ate, ei­ther from the PNM or In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, to pass the bill there.

Op­po­si­tion of­fi­cials said they were fi­nal­is­ing the par­ty’s po­si­tion on the bill and were ex­pect­ed to speak on it at to­day’s me­dia con­fer­ence on var­i­ous mat­ters.

A PER­SON COM­MITS THE OF­FENCE OF HOME IN­VA­SION IF HE/THEY:

* un­law­ful­ly en­ter an oc­cu­pied dwelling house when he

knows or has rea­son to know that one or more per­sons is

present in the dwelling house;

* un­law­ful­ly en­ter a dwelling house and re­mains

un­til one/more per­sons is present in the dwelling

house;

* en­ter an oc­cu­pied dwelling house and then forms the

in­ten­tion to com­mit a se­ri­ous crim­i­nal of­fence,

and –

* while armed with a weapon in­tim­i­dates, us­es force or

threat­ens the im­mi­nent use of force on any per­son with­in

the dwelling house, whether or not in­jury oc­curs;

* while armed with a firearm or an im­i­ta­tion firearm,

in­tim­i­dates, us­es force or threat­ens the im­mi­nent use of

force on any per­son with­in the dwelling house, whether

or not in­jury oc­curs;

* in­ten­tion­al­ly caus­es any in­jury, in­clud­ing griev­ous

bod­i­ly harm or death, or com­mits a griev­ous sex­u­al

as­sault or rape, of any per­son in the dwelling house;

* steals any prop­er­ty with or with­out the use of

in­tim­i­da­tion, threats or vi­o­lence;

*dam­ages or de­stroys any prop­er­ty with or with­out the use

of in­tim­i­da­tion, threats or vi­o­lence;

*in­tim­i­dates, us­es force or threat­ens the im­mi­nent use of

force on any per­son with­in the dwelling house, whether

or not the in­jury oc­curs, and dur­ing the com­mis­sion of

an of­fence dis­charges a firearm or det­o­nates an

ex­plo­sive de­vice; or

* dis­charges a firearm, det­o­nates an ex­plo­sive de­vice or

us­es a weapon that caus­es griev­ous bod­i­ly harm,

per­ma­nent dis­abil­i­ty or per­ma­nent dis­fig­ure­ment to any

per­son with­in the dwelling house.