Lawlessness bad at top too

Obviously, the 600-plus murders, increasing home invasions, illegal firearms and gangs, in particular, are pushing public fears infectiously to new levels. Has the country passed the tipping point?

Even PM Dr Keith Rowley seems to wonder. With obvious desperation and repeated hopes, he plans to reset things by calling “national consultations on crime.”

Former senior public servant and diplomat Reginald Dumas confessed, it is now “too late,” and in this there will be “nothing new” to say.

Citizens have been repeatedly hearing “crime is everybody business,” “citizens must support the police,” “see something, say something,” etc. So once again, a PM with policy-makers face the test of perception and credibility.

Dr Errol Benjamin’s letter, for example, was loudly headlined: Gov't doesn’t care. Will Dr Rowley prove Dumas and Benjamin wrong?

You see, given its sociological and psychological roots, even more than its related economic roots, reducing crime effectively will not happen overnight unless every alleged criminal is shot down.

It will require sustained efforts beyond the next election. The doors have been left open too long by one regime after another, even letting detection rates decrease phenomenally. And any politician telling us that he or she “will eradicate crime” should be sent up St Ann's Psychiatric Hospital.

Simply, crime is breaking the law, a statute. So it is not only about individuals committing crime. Equally subversive is what Appeal Justice Peter Rajkumar called “institutional inertia.” In this case of child abuse of a "genetically abnormal” child by government agencies, the Privy Council not only upheld Justice Rajkumar’s decision but, not for the first time, also had some stiff words about such institutions.

Dr Terrence Farrell therefore asked: What causes this "inertia," this “administrative sloth,” this “indifference,” this lack of responsiveness to people’s problems? Referring to the “unresponsibility” of government agencies, he noted that "46 per cent of 177 Privy Council appeals within the last 15 years" were civil suits against the State. “Institutional inertia” is everywhere in our public agencies, he added.

Dr Farrell continued: “Institutional inertia is sometimes indistinguishable from malice and cruel and unusual punishment.”

This makes it look like lawlessness from top to bottom, something Dr Rowley should note. He dutifully complained how uncaring families and parents also produce criminals. Lawful, victimised citizens may now ask Dr Rowley and the Cabinet to prevent lawlessness by some within their own family of state agencies.

How could the government increase the taxpaying salaries of councillors, make them permanent, and not require statutory requirements for performance and accountability? Local Government Minister Faris Al-Rawi has to act on behalf of taxpayers. In fact, it was Works Minister Rohan Sinanan who repeatedly complained how broken and collapsed drains, for example, have increased flooding and undermined roads under the regional corporations’ jurisdiction. Doesn’t Cabinet or at least Minister Al-Rawi discuss such “statutory neglect” arising from the Municipal Corporations Act?

State agencies like regional corporations or WASA sometimes fail in their statutory duties, then expensively fight suffering, even poor, complaining citizens in court. This, too, is a "crime.” To help beef up his own credibility, Dr Rowley should show some empathy, demand fairness and accountability from this form of “state oppression.” Recall, he once complained of “corruption over garbage collection.” Then Local Government Minister Kazim Hosein also complained over “corruption at the corporations.”

Referring to a recent Privy Council judgment against WASA for “statutory neglect” affecting a family, attorney Larry Lalla declared: “This matter shows unacceptable, disgraceful, high-handed and oppressive conduct by a state entity against some everyday citizens.” Since the Cabinet and its ministers have “general direction and control of the government,” are such agency misconduct raised in Parliament by Government itself, Opposition or the Joint Select Committees?

Martin Daly, SC, reasoned: ”Bureaucratic infrastructure is frequently set up with no clarity or linking to objectives. Once this is done, there is smug contentment of success at times with no key performance indicators.” This has been the story of many state agencies and with affected citizens left with no hope but resorting to the courts and media. When will better days come? Citizens should again remind elected politicians of Section 53 of the Constitution: “Parliament may make laws for the peace, order and good government of Trinidad and Tobago.”

But why “may” and not “shall?” Has our system of “representative government” failed?