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Friday, February 28, 2025

Kamla: Denying bail not the answer to fighting crime

by

Gail Alexander
240 days ago
20240703
Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar speaks during the debate on the Bail (Amendment) Bill, 2024 in Parliament yesterday.

Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar speaks during the debate on the Bail (Amendment) Bill, 2024 in Parliament yesterday.

While the Op­po­si­tion sup­port­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s Bail (Amend­ment) Bill, 2024, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, SC, says de­nial of bail was not the an­swer to fight­ing crime and that it was not even an an­ti-crime mea­sure.

“While we sup­port the bill, it’s clear this isn’t a plas­ter on a gap­ing wound,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar added in Par­lia­ment on Mon­day in her con­tri­bu­tion to the de­bate on the bill. It was passed with unan­i­mous sup­port from the Op­po­si­tion, as well as Gov­ern­ment MPs.

In sup­port­ing the bill, Per­sad-Bisses­sar had brushed off pi­cong, say­ing that it was not a “rub­bish” bill.

“This is a bill which reme­dies some de­fi­cien­cies in law which, be­cause of the (Privy Coun­cil’s) Ak­ili Charles judg­ment, does give us that bal­ance of pro­por­tion­al­i­ty, so we’re pre­pared to sup­port it; this has to do with the pub­lic in­ter­est of the peo­ple of T&T,” she said.

She added that the Gov­ern­ment had asked for the Op­po­si­tion’s sup­port and took its ad­vice, and cer­tain key amend­ments in this bill were not in pre­vi­ous bills. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said it was the sixth time since 2016 that a Bail Amend­ment Bill was be­ing de­bat­ed. She ques­tioned why the Gov­ern­ment found it nec­es­sary to bring the bill in the last week be­fore the Par­lia­ment re­cess.

“In some ways, we’re play­ing catch up as we’re on the cusp of a gen­er­al elec­tion,” she said, adding that the Gov­ern­ment brought the bill to bat­tle un­prece­dent­ed crime, which sug­gest­ed they had failed to tack­le that.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the bill would not curb T&T’s crime wave as it took willpow­er and com­pe­tence to do that. She said a speed­i­er jus­tice sys­tem was need­ed and called for the un­der­staffing of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions’ of­fice to be giv­en some pri­or­i­ty.


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