An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has thrown her sup­port be­hind po­lice of­fi­cers in the con­tin­u­ing im­broglio with the Ju­di­cia­ry over a pol­i­cy that pro­hibits them from tak­ing their weapons in­to court.

“I be­lieve that po­lice of­fi­cers should be al­lowed to keep their firearms when go­ing to court,” she said yes­ter­day.

“Many of these cas­es are vi­o­lent crime cas­es, and of­fi­cers are sub­ject­ed to threats by al­lies of the ac­cused per­sons.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar chal­lenged the Ju­di­cia­ry and Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie to clar­i­fy sev­er­al re­lat­ed is­sues, in­clud­ing whether Spe­cial Branch of­fi­cers as­signed to pro­tect mag­is­trates and judges are al­lowed in­side court build­ings with their firearms and if ju­di­cial of­fi­cers, mas­ters, mag­is­trates and judges are al­lowed to en­ter court build­ings with their firearms.

If this was in­deed so, she de­clared, it was “the height of hypocrisy for the ju­di­cia­ry to leave po­lice of­fi­cers ex­posed to po­ten­tial at­tacks with­out ac­cess to their firearms, while the ju­di­cial of­fi­cers are ful­ly pro­tect­ed and al­lowed to keep theirs.”

“The ju­di­cia­ry must come clean,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “I am in full sup­port of the TTPS of­fi­cers on this is­sue.”

“This dic­tate from the ju­di­cia­ry is just as hyp­o­crit­i­cal as the prime min­is­ter and his gov­ern­ment do­ing every­thing pos­si­ble to pre­vent law-abid­ing cit­i­zens from ac­cess­ing le­gal firearms while he and his min­is­ters are ful­ly pro­tect­ed by heav­i­ly armed po­lice de­spite the ma­jor­i­ty of gov­ern­ment min­is­ters and their fam­i­lies hav­ing per­son­al firearms.”

Re­spond­ing to the Ju­di­cia­ry’s ar­gu­ment that the pol­i­cy has been in place for over a decade, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “Mea­sures must be im­me­di­ate­ly tak­en to amend this pol­i­cy. In the past decade, there has been more mur­der and may­hem in the coun­try un­der Row­ley.

“There has al­so been a ma­jor es­ca­la­tion in the num­ber of gangs and re­ports that in­di­cate that hits are called from be­hind the prison walls by gang mem­bers. Now that the ju­di­cia­ry has stat­ed clear­ly what its’ pol­i­cy is, TTPS of­fi­cers are even more vul­ner­a­ble and ex­posed to the crim­i­nal el­e­ments.”

She added, “I call on the ju­di­cia­ry to make the nec­es­sary changes to al­low TTPS of­fi­cers to be armed in court.”

On Thurs­day, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP), Op­er­a­tions, Ju­nior Ben­jamin ad­vised po­lice of­fi­cers to abide by the 2015 ju­di­cial pol­i­cy not to take firearms in­to court un­til a new di­rec­tive is is­sued.

Se­nior of­fi­cials of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) and the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA) said they are will­ing to meet with the Ju­di­cia­ry to ham­mer out a res­o­lu­tion where all par­ties will be in agree­ment.

The Sum­ma­ry Court Act, the Po­lice Ser­vice Act and the Sup­ple­men­tal Po­lice Act al­low of­fi­cers to be in court with their firearms.