Kamla: Bill can be politically ‘weaponised’

OPPOSITION Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar said the Opposition opposed the Bail (Amendment) (no 2) Bill 2019 because the measures proposed by government could be used as a “weapon” by the ruling PNM going into the general election season. She said it could be used against people not in support of the government.

The opposition, she said, felt the bill was too draconian, too much in violation of citizens’ rights without the appropriate checks and balances, “and which can certainly be abused.”

She said government wanted to change the opposition’s proposal for refusal of bail to a third-time offender, to bail being refused to a first-time offender.

“This is where you can get held without bail, just thrown in jail.

“Now we had had it where if you were a third-time offender – they want to say first-time offender – and remember when you’re a first-time offender, it’s not that you’ve actually committed a crime, it is that you are suspected of a crime,” Persad-Bissessar said.

She said the bill, which required a three-fifth majority vote in the House of Representatives and which failed after Opposition MPs abstained from voting, made it easy to falsely accuse someone of a crime by planting something illegal on their property.

She said the bail package needs serious reform, “as it goes against poor black people,” and non-custodial measures such as the use of GPS bracelets for those who have not yet been convicted.

“They don’t have them yet, we passed that law and left it there for them so you could have bail at home.

“The system militates against poor black people especially, but the poor, whether you’re black, brown or blue, it militates against the poor, and what is needed is bail reform, not more draconian bail legislation.”

She was speaking Monday at the launch of Project Hope, a community-based agriculture project in Phase 7, La Horquetta. Last Friday, the Opposition opted not to support the amendment, which denies bail for 120 days (four months) to anyone caught in illegal possession of military-grade weapons for use or for trafficking.