The Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) will go on "tri­al" to­mor­row when Par­lia­ment con­venes to seek sup­port for the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion of the amend­ed Cap­i­tal Of­fences Bill 2011. One way or the oth­er, there will be a hang­ing-whether it is the PNM or the killers is left to be seen-said Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Dr Rood­lal Mooni­lal. The Gov­ern­ment has the req­ui­site ma­jor­i­ty to pass the Bill, but is still seek­ing Op­po­si­tion sup­port to im­ple­ment the law.

The PNM has open­ly stat­ed its sup­port for the re­sump­tion of hang­ing while ex­press­ing con­cerns over cer­tain parts of the leg­is­la­tion, main­ly the cat­e­goris­ing of mur­ders. The Gov­ern­ment ac­ced­ed to the de­mands, go­ing back to the draw­ing board and amend­ing the leg­is­la­tion. How­ev­er, the PNM is adamant that queries raised in the Bill have not been ad­dressed. Mooni­lal said the po­si­tion tak­en by the Op­po­si­tion leaves many to won­der if the PNM is play­ing games.

In an in­ter­view with Sun­day Guardian yes­ter­day, Mooni­lal de­scribed to­mor­row as his­toric in the con­text of the fight against crime, as the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion by the Gov­ern­ment on hang­ing comes to a crit­i­cal junc­ture. "We have made fun­da­men­tal amend­ments to our ini­tial ver­sion of the Bill-Con­sti­tu­tion­al Amend­ment (Cap­i­tal Of­fences Bill 2011). We have made these fun­da­men­tal changes to sat­is­fy the de­mands of the Op­po­si­tion so that the fi­nal ver­sion is ef­fec­tive­ly the PNM's bill. Yet, it ap­pears that the Op­po­si­tion would not sup­port the Bill and leads us to be­lieve that they are play­ing games with such im­por­tant mat­ters as an­ti-crime leg­is­la­tion."

He point­ed out that if the Bill is passed, hang­ing could be al­most in­stan­ta­neous once ap­proved by the Sen­ate. "This is a defin­ing mo­ment in the fight against the crim­i­nal el­e­ments. If the Bill is passed with the req­ui­site ma­jor­i­ty it means that any­one con­vict­ed of mur­der af­ter pas­sage of the Bill is cer­tain not to live out his nat­ur­al life. A con­vict­ed killer would be cer­tain to face the hang­man. This is why the lack of sup­port by the Op­po­si­tion is so as­ton­ish­ing when they de­clared to 'hang them high'. "The Op­po­si­tion po­si­tion now is like ty­ing the noose around the killer's neck but un­ty­ing it at the end. So, on Mon­day, it is the PNM on tri­al. One way or the oth­er there will be a hang­ing at high noon-ei­ther the PNM or the killers. If the Op­po­si­tion fails to sup­port the Bill, then they may very well be po­lit­i­cal­ly hanged op­po­site Wood­ford Square," Mooni­lal stat­ed.

Im­bert: WE WILL NOT SUP­PORT BILL

In­sist­ing that the Op­po­si­tion would not be sup­port­ing the leg­is­la­tion, Diego Mar­tin North East MP Colm Im­bert said Gov­ern­ment has failed to amend the is­sues raised. "They have not made the amend­ments we asked for. We queried the most fun­da­men­tal clause-which is Clause Five. This clause is the sec­tion of the Bill that seeks to al­ter the Con­sti­tu­tion. Our prob­lem is that we did not be­lieve that it was nec­es­sary to al­ter the Con­sti­tu­tion to achieve the re­sults they are seek­ing to achieve." Point­ing out that it was agreed that there should be a time frame to pur­sue ap­peals to the in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man rights body, Im­bert said the Op­po­si­tion po­si­tion is that this could be done via a sep­a­rate piece of leg­is­la­tion.

"When you tam­per with the Con­sti­tu­tion you are chang­ing it in a fun­da­men­tal way. We do not be­lieve that is war­rant­ed in this case. We be­lieve that a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty bill can be achiev­ing the same ef­fect with­out rad­i­cal­ly in­ter­fer­ing with the Con­sti­tu­tion. We al­so feel they have not in­formed the pub­lic about al­ter­ing the Con­sti­tu­tion; this is ab­solute­ly nec­es­sary, that pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions should be held. "What is the rush?" he ques­tioned. "Our ini­tial pro­pos­al was that we have a pe­ri­od of pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion and ad­dress this is­sue im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter Car­ni­val. We would not be sup­port­ing the Bill on Mon­day (to­mor­row)."