Former president wants more done in fight against crime

"MURDER most foul" was the description used by former president Anthony Carmona of the slaying of Senior Counsel Dana Seetahal a decade ago.

“It is a moment like this that leaves one with a staggering sense of loss and even frustration that justice has not been served in a timely fashion to inspire much-needed hope in a judicial and law enforcement system that continues to meander, seemingly aimlessly, more so because some wounds just don’t heal and one such wound is the naked injustice of Dana’s passing,” Carmona said.

He was speaking at a remembrance ceremony in Seetahal’s honour hosted by the Criminal Bar Association at the Hugh Wooding Law School’s (HWLS) lecture hall, St Augustine, on May 25.

Around 12.05 am on May 4, 2014, Seetahal was driving her Volkswagen SUV to her One Woodbrook Place apartment when two vehicles blocked the road near the Woodbrook Youth Facility on Hamilton Holder Street, Port of Spain. The occupants got out and shot her five times.
In July 2015, 11 men were charged with her murder. A preliminary inquiry into her murder was completed in July 2020, with ten men being committed to stand trial and one turning state witness.

Carmona said Seetahal’s murder shook the foundation stone of the nation’s faith in what was good and honourable and laid bare, in splinters, the moral fibre of a society in abject crisis.

“Doing right to others, doing the right thing and upholding the rule of law, somehow we feel such decency affords a level of protection and insulation from the evil vagaries of life. In Dana’s case like so many of our young men and women, this insulation never happened.”

He said Seetahal’s defining attribute was a “consistent glow.”

“She derived immense pleasure from her job, fashioning a type of perfection in her work.

“She possessed a unique sense of humour which defused difficult situations and facilitated affirmative interactions.”

Carmona said as an independent senator, she spoke courageously and firmly but with utmost civility.

“She never descended into the pit, never denigrating or engaging in personal acrimony.

“She had command of that diminishing skill and art of debating rather than reading her contributions in the Parliament.”

Carmona also provided anecdotes from former prosecutors now serving in the region of Seetahal’s influence on their careers.

“Therefore the morbid anniversary of Dana’s brutal death must do something, it must wake up the dead in us to make us alive, that the crime stats and rate are not only unprecedented but hopelessly aberrant, supported by consistent bold face, administrative and governmental incompetence and a slew of ideas where mediocrity of performance has become the benchmark...of success in this Trinidad and Tobago.”

The former president acknowledged TT had become “an egregious society with no respect for the sanctity of human life made more appalling by the subsisting pervasive and accepted institutional fluff and governance models and philosophies that simply do not cater to the simple needs and basic aspirations of a society to feel secure, safe and sound.”

He said the seemingly institutional indifference and apathy toward crime in TT was grave and startling.

“Is it that crime and criminality are beneficial to someone or some people? Why isn’t there resolute willpower and an unmitigated desire to remove red tape, regressive policies and bureaucratic processes that hinder the fight against crime?”

He also questioned if, as a nation, enough was being done in the war against crime.

“I respectfully submit that that is not the case,” he said, as he said TT appeared to be “falling too short” in using all available means to tackle the scourge of crime.

He said ten years after TT adopted the UN Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), it was yet to comply with the binding obligation to implement provisions into domestic law.

Carmona urged legislators to pass comprehensive legislation to give effect to all the treaty’s provisions.

Carmona, a former High Court judge and judge of the International Criminal Court, said, “It must not be an exercise in nitpicking, with the amendment of existing legislation, such as the Firearms Act to implement certain aspects of the ATT.

“I find the amendment route is a lazy approach to policy implementation and operationalisation when there is a need for comprehensive legislation to address international obligations.

“What is required is comprehensive legislation that will address all obligations, duties, international benchmark standards, norms and nuances associated with the said obligatory mandates.”

In continuing his tribute to Seetahal, Carmona spoke of her role as an independent senator, saying she was never about “skin and grin politics.

“It was always about the people’s business.

“Senator Dana Seetahal, SC, ensured that as an independent senator legislation laid in the Parliament, always felt and was subject to the full brunt of her legal hawk eye, exposing lacunae but very importantly making the required input to ensure the legislation was fit for purpose and affirmatively transformative, because it was never about mere change for change sake or gratuitous amendments of legislation.

“She was a woman for all seasons when it came to doing right and being right and just to others.”

Also paying tribute were CBA president Israel Khan, SC, Sophia Chote, SC, and Miriam Samaru, principal of the HWLS. Khan used the opportunity to make a call for Seetahal to receive TT's highest honour, the Order of the Republic, for her contribution to the jurisprudence of the region as well.

Present at the standing-room-only event were several Appeal Court and High Court judges, magistrates and attorneys.