PM on Defense Amendment Bill
The Government is not backing down on moves to amend the Defence Act to give soldiers the same powers of arrest as police, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar said yesterday.However, she said the Government has noted some of the concerns expressed by citizens and will make certain changes to the legislation when debate resumes in the House of Representatives today.
But MPs are expected to witness a vigil in protest of the legislation this afternoon. It is being organised by the civil society group Fixin T&T.Persad-Bissessar spoke with reporters after visits to the Arima and Maloney police stations now being constructed and the Inter-Agency Task Force headquarters at Arranguez, San Juan.
She dismissed claims by former attorney general Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj that soldiers were only supposed to defend the country from external aggression or assist the police in times of natural disasters. The PM said the criminals have waged war against the society and soldiers are being called out to defend the country in the war against crime. She said when the debate resumes "we will answer the concerns raised."
According to Persad-Bissessar, there are people who are attempting to vilify the soldiers."It does not appear as though the soldiers and police officers have a problem working together," she said.She said the criticisms against the soldiers were not fair, as they have not been "brutish and abusive" to civilians in the past. She also said the soldiers were not killing machines.
Told that there were claims that the Government was seeking to make the country a military state by the measure, Persad-Bissessar said: "That is not true. To militarise the State you would have to have a host of other structures in place, which we are not contemplating at all."The PM said both Chief of Defence Staff Major General Kenrick Maharaj and acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams were consulted about the legislation before it was laid in the Parliament.
She said when the legislation is approved the soldiers will work with the police and not by themselves and the legislation is being amended further to ensure soldiers report to the CDS and not the National Security Minister. She said this was being proposed in response to the concerns raised by members of the public."We propose an amendment tomorrow (today) to deal with that concern," she added.
Asked to respond to claims that Williams was not the best person to investigate allegations of a new Flying Squad in the Police Service, the PM said she felt he has all the resources to conduct the probe.Earlier, Williams told reporters that former head of the Flying Squad Mervyn Cordner had been changing his utterances every time he spoke. He maintained he had never met with Cordner.
Jairam: Move unnecessary
In a release issued yesterday about the legislation, president of the Law Association Seenath Jairam, SC, said to permit the general exercise of state military power during peace time "is contrary to the specific constitutional safeguards which restrict such use and is thus an unconstitutional overreach by the executive.
"We prefer to see that the precepted powers ought only to be used in assisting the police in their duties when a serious crime is being committed in the presence of such precepted soldiers," Jairam said.Jairam said the association wanted to point out that "at common law, all citizens are duty-bound to assist in the fight against crime and as such have at common law the powers of arrest with the same immunities and protections as the Police Service."