Jesse Ramdeo

Stake­hold­ers have con­tend­ed that the on­ly way Cari­com’s two-day crime sym­po­sium can be la­belled a suc­cess is if the rec­om­men­da­tions ar­tic­u­lat­ed by lead­ers are op­er­a­tionalised.

They warned that un­less im­me­di­ate ac­tions were tak­en im­me­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing the sym­po­sium, which end­ed yes­ter­day at the Hy­att Re­gency in Port-of-Spain, the chaos and car­nage as­so­ci­at­ed with crime here at home and around the re­gion would con­tin­ue to climb.

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seecha­ran said the crime sym­po­sium was a step in the right di­rec­tion at a time when safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty loomed on the edge for many coun­tries.

“There was a huge amount of en­thu­si­asm about the pub­lic health ap­proach and wide recog­ni­tion that what they have been do­ing hasn’t been work­ing in the Caribbean, as crime rates have been go­ing up not just in Trinidad and To­ba­go but in many oth­er na­tions and it is time, we need to do some­thing dif­fer­ent be­cause if we do not do some­thing dif­fer­ent, we are go­ing to be go­ing down the same road that we have been go­ing down the last 20 years and we could end up in a sit­u­a­tion like Venezuela or Haiti,” Seecha­ran said dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Pro­fes­sor Ramesh De­osaran stressed that it was now time to lever­age the rec­om­men­da­tions from re­gion­al lead­ers and.

“I think what the sym­po­sium should re­al­ly do is to se­lect those ma­jor is­sues, pri­ori­tise them, pri­ori­tise the rel­e­vance, the im­por­tance and the com­plex­i­ty of all the is­sues raised, whether it is gangs, the so­cial con­di­tions con­cern­ing crime, make a list and set sub-com­mit­tees to ex­am­ine each one with­in two weeks. Get as much da­ta to back up the rec­om­men­da­tions and then do it in a very in­tel­li­gent and sus­tain­able man­ner,” Pro­fes­sor De­osaran said.

He al­so backed the pro­pos­als of pub­lic of­fice hold­ers, in­clud­ing Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley, who has ad­vo­cat­ed for a Cari­com ar­rest war­rant, the ex­change and ro­ta­tion of judges and the en­large­ment of the ju­ris­dic­tion of mag­is­trates among oth­er things.

De­osaran said a Caribbean ju­di­cia­ry and the es­tab­lish­ment of a Caribbean polic­ing sys­tem were is­sues for con­sid­er­a­tion.

He added, “Ms Mot­t­ley’s rec­om­men­da­tion will be very use­ful, not on­ly to move around the judges but to move around the ju­rors, es­pe­cial­ly in the small­er is­lands, for very se­ri­ous crim­i­nal cas­es, es­pe­cial­ly where fa­mil­iar­i­ty ex­ists be­tween the ju­rors and the ac­cused.”

Se­cu­ri­ty con­sul­tant Dirk Barnes, mean­while, weighed in on St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Prime Min­is­ter Dr Ralph Gon­salves’ po­si­tion that judges and mag­is­trates were too soft on crim­i­nals.

“It is not a mat­ter of be­ing le­nient on crim­i­nals but al­so be­ing swift in terms of ad­min­is­trat­ing these crim­i­nals.

“We have a sys­tem that can go on for years, it’s a re­volv­ing door and we have to put things to fix that,” Barnes said.

Barnes said lead­ers pre­sent­ed ap­plic­a­ble and ob­vi­ous so­lu­tions that can be adopt­ed across all re­gions.

How­ev­er, Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Is­rael Khan ex­pressed con­cern with com­ments by some lead­ers that judges in Trinidad and To­ba­go who grant bail to ac­cused on mur­der charges were con­tribut­ing to the es­ca­la­tion of crimes.

“I’m flab­ber­gast­ed and deeply dis­turbed,” Khan said in a state­ment yes­ter­day.

He said he would con­vey an emer­gency meet­ing of the CBA to dis­cuss the un­war­rant­ed at­tack on the ju­di­cia­ry.

“I al­so call up­on the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the South­ern As­sem­bly of Lawyers and most of all Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie, to re­fute the dis­gust­ing state­ment that grant­i­ng bail to mur­der ac­cused is con­tribut­ing to crim­i­nal­i­ty in T&T.”

Khan called on Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie to re­fute the as­ser­tion that the judges in T&T were ir­re­spon­si­ble with the is­sue of bail.

(See page 6)

“CJ Archie, are you still be­hold­en to Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley, or are you go­ing to de­fend the Ju­di­cia­ry against this on­slaught of sub­terfuge by the Cari­com lead­ers to save face for their in­ep­ti­tude in curb­ing crimes in the re­gion,” Khan added.

He said un­der the doc­trine of the Sep­a­ra­tion of Pow­ers, the Ju­di­cia­ry is pro­tect­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al rights of its cit­i­zens.

“It ap­pears that the politi­cians who are re­spon­si­ble for en­act­ing leg­is­la­tion and de­vis­ing work­able crime plans to de­feat the scourge of crim­i­nal­i­ty in the re­gion are en­gag­ing in a blame game and shift­ing their lack of com­pe­tence un­to the Ju­di­cia­ry,” said Khan.

“Every ac­cused charged with a crim­i­nal of­fence is pre­sumed to be in­no­cent and the law recog­nis­es (even on a mur­der charge) that he/she should not be de­nied bail with­out just cause.”

Khan added, “And by the way, how come the Cari­com lead­ers are not ze­ro­ing in­to mon­ey laun­der­ing and white-col­lar crimes in the re­gion. Are they pro­tect­ing the par­a­sitic oli­garchy in their re­spec­tive coun­tries? Is it that all men are equals but some are more equal than oth­ers?”