The justice system in T&T moves slower than molasses. As a result there is no justice system. I have no statistics but I am willing to claim that there are many hundreds of cases which are not even on the court calendar and these are cases over ten years or more.
When and if these cases do get called, the witnesses have either died, migrated or have forgotten or have been threatened, so out goes these cases and therefore no justice. Cases, when called, have been postponed on several occasions either because the lawyers are involved in other cases in other places, or the presiding judge/magistrate with so many cases before him/her has to put off cases.
There are many people with multiple charges yet have never been to court. They know that the system is slow so they continue as usual in their criminal activities.There is a lot of negative talk from a certain side of the political spectrum which admits that crime is a major problem. Yet after agreeing to Section 34, which would have helped to speed up the justice system for all, decided to condemn it.
Do we have a reliable Opposition which is there to help clean-up T&T or is it only to oppose legislature whether good or bad? If this is the case then T&T is in a sorry state.
Clermont Andrews
via e-mail