Activist Kublalsingh 'tired of begging' for change

ACTIVIST Dr Wayne Kublalsingh says he is tired of “begging” politicians to place greater focus on societal issues such as corruption and white-collar crime which affects the lives of many citizens. Come 2021, he said, he will launch an initiative to fix the criminal justice system and reduce crime.

How does he plan to do this? By creating a movement that "is so strong," change will be inevitable. Kublalsingh spoke after a small placard protest he and criminal justice system reform activist Adrian Gokool held at the Brian Lara Promenade on Christmas Day.

Kublalsingh said this movement will be championed by those frustrated by the steady increase in crime. “You cannot fix crime by staying home and waiting because if you stay home, crime will come to you. So therefore you have to come out, you have to advocate, take to the streets and do what they call 'making noise'.

"Because if you don’t make noise, the ears of the Prime Minister, the Attorney General and the Minister of National Security will all be closed, they would not get the work done,” Kublalsingh said.

“We will continue lobbying and we will build the most powerful movement to reform and revamp the criminal justice system in TT. Because I cannot come out there and arrest anyone, I don’t have that constitutional right. The ones authorised to do that are the ones authorised by the Constitution and law in Parliament and Parliament must look into this.”

It is first important to lobby for change in the justice system, he added. Kublalsingh said Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi has failed to bring change to the criminal justice system because he doesn’t have the support he needs. “We cannot blame the police, they sometimes go to court and are told to come back another time because the matter was adjourned.

“There are a lot of things that can be done very quickly. The Attorney General said he will free a lot of prisoners because of covid19 and overcrowding. We have checked and no prisoner was freed because of covid19, they were freed because of the routine freeing of prisoners.

He applauded Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith for his passion and drive towards making TT a safer place and said he believes Griffith can do much more to curb crime and violence, if only he has the support he needs and is provided with all necessary resources from Government.

“He (Griffith) needs to have the will of the Attorney General and the Minister of National Security backing him, making him feel like he can do his work with the safeguard of policy and with the safeguard of resources. The political officers need to come out and make strong statements and show that they are fighting,” Kublalsingh said.

He hopes his efforts will encourage the establishment of new laws that will reduce the time it takes to manage court cases, deal with the backlog (of court cases) and reduce crime and criminal activity.