Cabinet considering new bail, anti-gang legislation

CABINET is currently considering new bail and anti-gang legislation. Attorney-General Faris Al-Rawi made the disclosure during an interview on television station WESN on Thursday.

“What we have been doing is continuing the work that we started. I took today to the Cabinet. Certain recommendations for the review of the bail laws. I also took today to the Cabinet, anti-gang legislation,” Al-Rawi said.

Recalling the recent failure of the Opposition to support both bail and anti-gang legislation, Al-Rawi said Section 5(1) of the Bail Act currently prevents anyone charged with murder from accessing bail. He added this has been the law since 1994.

Al-Rawi reiterated that his predecessor Anand Ramlogan SC is now in court “seeking to strike out Section 5(1).” In addition, Al-Rawi continued, Ramlogan is also asking for “ vindicatory damages for people who are incarcerated in remand for access to bail.”

While Ramlogan is free to legally advocate for any cause that he wants to, Al-Rawi said he found it difficult to understand how Ramlogan’s advocacy differed from his “moral statements made on the parliamentary record in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2015,” regarding bail legislation.

Al-Rawi also said, “Whilst we want to sheperd the most violent people into no bail conditions. we are at the same time looking at who is in the prisons, who is past maximum sentence, who can the benefits ot applying the prisons rules, work for.”

He disclosed that a February 16 letter from Commissioner of Prisons Dennis Pulchan, advised that a total of 2,812 convicted and remanded prisoners were released from prison from April 1, 2020 to January 31, to prevent the spread of covid19 in the prisons by removed people incarcerated for non-violenbt offences.

Of these 2,812 prisoners, Al-Rawi said 1,528 ( 101 women and 1,428 men) were granted bail. He explained that the remaining 1,284 prisoners were discharged once their fines were paid. This figure comprised 1,251 men and 33 women. “These are not insignificant statistics.”

On the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) Amendment Bill 2021, which the House of Representatives debated on Friday, Al-Rawi said he hoped the Opposition would look objectively at the legislation but he added that Government does not need UNC support to pass it.

Al-Rawi indicated the proposal to expand the number of seats in the THA from 12 to 15 has been in the public domain since 2015. Noting the failure of the PNM and PDP to elect a presiding officer for the Assembly since the six-six deadlock on January 25, Al-Rawi opined that only a new THA election, with 15 seats at stake, will break the deadlock. “They need to go back to the polls.”

After indicating that the National Sex Offenders Registry has been operationalised, Al-Rawi reiterated that an unofficial list which has been circulating “is a very dangerous thing.” He observed, “Whilst there are many people who have been savaged, some people end up being framed.” Al-Rawi said, “Currently, the framing doesn’t carry anything more than wasting police time.”