KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

The Pa­role Bill, 2026, was passed in the Up­per House on Tues­day, bring­ing the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion one step clos­er to es­tab­lish­ing pro­vi­sions for the ear­ly re­lease of cer­tain pris­on­ers be­fore the com­ple­tion of their sen­tences.

De­spite the clash of views be­tween Jus­tice Min­is­ter De­vesh Ma­haraj and Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi dur­ing the de­bate, the bill was passed with­out amend­ments.

Ac­cord­ing to the Gov­ern­ment, the bill will al­low for the ear­ly re­lease of cer­tain pris­on­ers be­fore the com­ple­tion of their sen­tences, once they meet strict el­i­gi­bil­i­ty re­quire­ments and con­di­tions un­der the pro­posed law.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the leg­is­la­tion is in­tend­ed to sup­port the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and rein­te­gra­tion of of­fend­ers, while al­so ad­dress­ing con­cerns over over­crowd­ing with­in the na­tion’s pris­ons.

While no amend­ments were made, Jus­tice Min­is­ter Ma­haraj promised that all con­sid­er­a­tions made by sen­a­tors, in­clud­ing In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors Sophia Chote and Dr Mar­lene Attzs, will be tak­en in­to con­sid­er­a­tion be­fore be­ing passed.

Ma­haraj said, “We will take in­to con­sid­er­a­tion most, if not all, of your rec­om­men­da­tions and sug­ges­tions… We give an un­der­tak­ing that it’s not go­ing to be im­ple­ment­ed un­til we take all the nec­es­sary steps to en­sure that this leg­is­la­tion will be prop­er­ly func­tion­ing.”

Ma­haraj al­so promised that the new bill will not be put in­to an ex­ist­ing sys­tem and re­as­sured that vic­tims are “part of the process.”

He added that the Gov­ern­ment is al­so work­ing to in­crease staffing of both the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice and T&T Prison Ser­vice, while ac­knowl­edg­ing that the po­lice are stretched due to at­tri­tion, re­tire­ments, leave and short­ages, de­spite on­go­ing re­cruit­ment ef­forts.

He said the Prison Ser­vice is al­so fac­ing se­vere staff short­ages, es­pe­cial­ly in re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­grammes, with on­ly 57 of­fi­cers serv­ing about 3,500 in­mates across ten fa­cil­i­ties.

Ma­haraj al­so ar­gued that the Gov­ern­ment is pur­su­ing wider crim­i­nal jus­tice re­forms along­side the bill, in­clud­ing re­duc­ing foren­sic back­logs, strength­en­ing the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions and pro­tec­tive ser­vices, and fast-track­ing crim­i­nal mat­ters.

He al­so re­vealed plans for a pro­posed “dis­sua­sion com­mis­sion,” aimed at di­vert­ing mi­nor of­fend­ers away from the for­mal court sys­tem through re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­grammes.

Some of the oth­er sug­ges­tions made by sen­a­tors, pri­mar­i­ly Al-Rawi, in­clud­ed clar­i­fy­ing de­f­i­n­i­tions, ex­pand­ing vic­tim in­volve­ment, no­ti­fy­ing vic­tims of pa­role de­ci­sions and re­struc­tur­ing the pa­role board to in­clude 15 peo­ple.

How­ev­er, con­cerns about po­lit­i­cal in­flu­ence on the pa­role board were re­ject­ed, as Ma­haraj said mul­ti­ple safe­guards, in­clud­ing court over­sight, psy­chi­atric as­sess­ments and ju­di­cial re­view, were con­sid­ered.

Al-Rawi with­drew his pro­posed amend­ments on the premise that both At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie and Ma­haraj would take his sug­ges­tions in­to con­sid­er­a­tion.