KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

De­spite ac­knowl­edg­ing con­cerns raised in the Sen­ate, De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge says the Vic­tims’ Rights Bill, 2026, must still be passed, ar­gu­ing that vic­tims of crime have wait­ed too long for mean­ing­ful jus­tice with­in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.

Con­tribut­ing to de­bate in the Up­per House, Sturge said the leg­is­la­tion rep­re­sents a nec­es­sary first step in ad­dress­ing long-stand­ing fail­ures that have left vic­tims “in­vis­i­ble” with­in the sys­tem. He used two sex­u­al of­fence cas­es to il­lus­trate de­lays in in­ves­ti­ga­tions and pros­e­cu­tions, which he said re­flect sys­temic weak­ness­es that the bill seeks to ad­dress.

Sturge said both cas­es demon­strat­ed how de­lays and in­ef­fi­cien­cies in the sys­tem can dis­cour­age vic­tims from pur­su­ing jus­tice, par­tic­u­lar­ly where cas­es in­volve pow­er­ful or well-con­nect­ed in­di­vid­u­als.

He said while the Vic­tims’ Rights Bill was not per­fect, leg­is­la­tion should not be stalled in­def­i­nite­ly in search of per­fec­tion.

He added that even if the bill were sent to a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee, dis­agree­ments would re­main, point­ing to the re­peat­ed amend­ments of the Bail Act as ev­i­dence that laws evolve over time.

“To find every rea­son not to pass this is analy­sis paral­y­sis. We can sit down here all day be­cause we all have dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives. Once you have dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives when you look at a piece of leg­is­la­tion, we will all find prob­lems with it.”

Sturge said that while many of the con­cerns raised by In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Sophia Chote were valid, the leg­is­la­tion is nec­es­sary to be­gin cor­rect­ing a sys­tem in which vic­tims are of­ten left with­out up­dates or sup­port.

He ar­gued that al­though the bill does not cre­ate ful­ly en­force­able le­gal rights, it in­tro­duces ac­count­abil­i­ty by al­low­ing dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion against of­fi­cers and pros­e­cu­tors who fail to per­form their du­ties.

Sturge de­scribed the bill as the be­gin­ning of a cul­tur­al shift in how vic­tims are treat­ed by in­ves­tiga­tive and pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al agen­cies.

He al­so ar­gued that vic­tims should be in­formed when charges are with­drawn, amend­ed, or when ac­cused per­sons are grant­ed bail, say­ing lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion of­ten deep­ens dis­tress for vic­tims.

Re­spond­ing to crit­i­cism from Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi, Sturge ac­cused the for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al of fail­ing to ad­vance vic­tims’ rights dur­ing his time in of­fice.

“He had ten years to do it, and now that some­body is do­ing it, he has a prob­lem,” Sturge said.

Sturge urged sen­a­tors to sup­port the leg­is­la­tion, ar­gu­ing that while it is not per­fect, it marks a nec­es­sary start­ing point in plac­ing vic­tims at the cen­tre of the jus­tice sys­tem af­ter years of ne­glect.

What is the Vic­tims’ Rights Bill, 2026?

The Vic­tims’ Rights Bill, 2026, is pro­posed leg­is­la­tion aimed at strength­en­ing the treat­ment and sup­port of crime vic­tims with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.

The bill seeks to en­sure vic­tims are kept in­formed about in­ves­ti­ga­tions, court pro­ceed­ings, bail de­ci­sions and the with­draw­al or amend­ment of charges.

It al­so pro­pos­es stan­dards for how vic­tims should be treat­ed by po­lice, pros­e­cu­tors and oth­er of­fi­cials, while in­tro­duc­ing dis­ci­pli­nary mea­sures where du­ties are ne­glect­ed.

The leg­is­la­tion is in­tend­ed to place vic­tims at the cen­tre of the jus­tice process af­ter years of crit­i­cism that they were of­ten over­looked or left with­out sup­port.