Kamla: Don’t blame me, Rowley

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley’s assertion that “more will die” after the Opposition failed to support the Anti-Gang Bill was rebuffed by Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar who instead asserted that the PNM administration was attempting to blame the Opposition benches for the runaway murder rate.

In a strongly worded statement late Friday evening, Persad-Bissessar also defended her party’s insistence that a two-year sunset clause be included as part of the legislation.

She stated that the parliamentary record would show that the Prime Minister “sat in Parliament while the Opposition laid an amendment to add a sunset clause which would cause the anti-gang legislation to come back to Parliament for an assessment in 18 months.”

“We later made a second offer of the clause taking effect in two years. We believed the sunset clause was important to protect the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago from the potential abuse of powers by several arms of the State,” she added.

Persad-Bissessar pointed out that the bill required a special majority as certain powers granted by the bill would violate constitutionally protected rights of all citizens, “including the law-abiding citizens which it seeks to protect.”

“For example, the bill includes proposals for warrantless searches of premises by police officers in certain circumstances,’ she stated. She noted that because of the potential for abuse, the Opposition proposed a “short sunset clause to ensure that the law would not remain on the books for very long should it be abused by law enforcement actors or political influences.”

“The Government did not agree with us and we agreed to extend our amendment such that the sunset clause would be in effect for two years. The Government still did not agree with the extended sunset clause and the Government did not want to have the law come up for assessment in two years,” she added.

She stated Rowley, during his contribution in the committee stage, had refused to support their recommendation of a two-year sunset clause and had insisted for a four-year sunset clause.

“The Prime Minister must explain why two years was not sufficient to assess the legislation given the Opposition’s multiple examples of the potential for abuse and the clear and unambiguous manner in which we stated the law must be checked for abuse in a very short time period,” she stated.

Persad-Bissessar pointed out that Government had indicated they knew who the gang members were and where they could be found but seemed “afraid” of the law being assessed in two years.

“I have repeatedly said the Opposition will support the passage of good law,” she stated, adding, “we reject Prime Minister Rowley’s attempts to play on the fears of citizens by saying “more will die” because the Opposition refused to be bullied into supporting legislation that could be open to abuse.”

She stated the PNM administration is presently facing the “highest murder rate in 10 years” and was seeking to cast blame on the Opposition during the final moments of 2017, “in order to hide his own incompetence.”

“The Opposition calls on the Prime Minister to stop playing games and come up with concrete measures to address the crime menace,” she stated.