AG claims UNC 'sabotaged' Bail Bill

ATTORNEY General Faris Al-Rawi is accusing the Opposition UNC of sabotaging the Bail Amendment Bill, with most of its members, including Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar, absent from the Parliament Chamber for most of the debate on it.

As he concluded the debate in the House of Representatives on Wednesday night, Al-Rawi declared, "If we wanted to pass this bill tonight, there has been a sabotage by the Opposition. We are required to have three fifths of the votes of the Parliament."

The Senate passed the bill on November 19. The bill needed 25 votes to pass in the House. This meant at least five Opposition MPs needed to vote with the Government's 23 MPs to pass the bill. At the time Al-Rawi was speaking, David Lee, Dr Tim Gopeesingh and Vidia Gayadeen-Gopeesingh were the only Opposition MPs in the chamber. Dr Fuad Khan and Rodney Charles returned before the House adjourned. Not all of the Government's MPs were present before the adjournment.

On Thursday Persad-Bissessar rejected Al-Rawi's accusation. She countered that at its public meeting in Sangre Grande on Monday, the UNC said it would not support the bill in its present form.

At that meeting, Persad-Bissessar claimed people could be wrongly arrested or framed, and would have to stay in jail without bail. "This is not an issue of sabotage."

She dismissed Al-Rawi's comments about her absence from Parliament. "My absence is not a major issue," she said. Persad-Bissessar added that she was involved with local government election campaigning and the Opposition MPs who were in the House would have articulated the UNC's position.

She also said the Opposition MPs who were prepared to bring amendments for the bill at the committee stage were present. But Persad-Bissessar observed the Government chose to end the debate and did not go to committee. She said the Prime Minister and other Government MPs were also absent from the House during the debate. Persad-Bissessar said if the Government was serious about passing the bill, all of its members should have been present too.

Dealing with the law's constitutionality on Wednesday, Al-Rawi said it could not be passed because of the Opposition's absence. He added this was "nothing other than a crying shame."

Al-Rawi said Charles did not understand that "you only get bail in the context of arrests." He asked, "When else are you going to be looking to the right to bail?"

In response to a comment from Gopeesingh, Al-Rawi replied, "A charge and an arrest come together. The law to treat with bail must be a feature of the arrest cycle."

Contrary to the Opposition's claims, Al-Rawi said, the legislation upheld the right of anyone to approach the court for bail.

He rejected UNC MPs' claims that the Opposition supported all anti-crime legislation that Government brought to Parliament. Al-Rawi recalled in the committee stage of income tax legislation, "They cried as if they were about to die, proverbially speaking of course."

He said Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith can testify that the PP was "prepared to pass draconian laws which stayed on the books until they caused it to collapse in 2016."

While some of those laws gave the country a fighting chance against criminals, the AG said in opposition the UNC "have no difficulty in saying no to the law."

At the end of Al-Rawi’s contribution, Leader of the House Camille Robinson-Regis asked the Speaker to adjourn debate on the bill.

The House sits next Friday to debate the Finance Bill.