Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

The death penal­ty, dis­crim­i­na­tion against les­bians and gays, ex­ces­sive use of force by po­lice of­fi­cers and back­logs in the courts are some of the hu­man rights con­cerns list­ed in the Ju­ly 31 pub­lished re­port on T&T sub­mit­ted by Amnesty In­ter­na­tion­al to the Unit­ed Na­tions Uni­ver­sal Pe­ri­od­ic Re­view, Oc­to­ber 2011.

The re­port said al­though there had been no ex­e­cu­tions since 1999, death sen­tences con­tin­ued to be hand­ed down by the courts. It said at the end of 2010 at least 40 pris­on­ers were on death row. "Manda­to­ry death sen­tences vi­o­late in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards on fair tri­als, in­di­vid­u­alised sen­tenc­ing is re­quired to pre­vent cru­el, in­hu­man or de­grad­ing pun­ish­ment and the ar­bi­trary de­pri­va­tion of life," the re­port stat­ed.

In Jan­u­ary, the Gov­ern­ment sub­mit­ted a bill for ap­proval by Par­lia­ment to re­form the Con­sti­tu­tion for the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the death penal­ty. In her state­ment on Jan­u­ary 14 on the bill, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la-Per­sad Bisses­sar said it was "a cru­cial step to over­com­ing the hin­drances to the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the death penal­ty aris­ing from the Privy Coun­cil's ju­rispru­dence and, as a con­se­quence, as a nec­es­sary mea­sure to fight crime and in par­tic­u­lar, to re­spond to the high num­ber of mur­ders that each year are com­mit­ted in Trinidad and To­ba­go." The bill was de­feat­ed on Feb­ru­ary 28. Amnesty In­ter­na­tion­al, how­ev­er, ex­pressed con­cern that the ev­i­dent con­tra­dic­tion with in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man rights law and stan­dards had not been dis­cussed in the par­lia­men­tary de­bate.

Amnesty In­ter­na­tion­al called on the Gov­ern­ment to im­me­di­ate­ly es­tab­lish a mora­to­ri­um on ex­e­cu­tions with a view to abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty and to com­mute with­out de­lay, all death sen­tences to terms of im­pris­on­ment. Among its oth­er rec­om­men­da­tion on the death penal­ty, it said to re­frain from propos­ing and adopt­ing leg­isla­tive and con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ments which could re­sult in the re­sump­tion of ex­e­cu­tions in vi­o­la­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man rights and stan­dards.

Re­peal laws that dis­crim­i­nate against gays and les­bians

On the is­sue of dis­crim­i­na­tion against les­bian, gay, bi­sex­u­al and trans­gen­der peo­ple, the re­port called for all pro­vi­sions that crim­i­nalise same-sex re­la­tions, in­clud­ing the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act to be re­pealed. It said pro­vi­sions in the Im­mi­gra­tion Act that were dis­crim­i­na­to­ry against such peo­ple should al­so be re­pealed.

It list­ed Sec­tions 13 and 16 of the Act which crim­i­nalised "bug­gery" which is pun­ish­able with 25 years' im­pris­on­ment when com­mit­ted by one adult on an­oth­er and same-sex in­ter­course as "se­ri­ous in­de­cen­cy" which is pun­ish­able with five years' im­pris­on­ment when com­mit­ted by same-sex part­ners over the age of 16.

It al­so list­ed Para­graph 8 (1) of the Im­mi­gra­tion Act which pro­hibits pros­ti­tutes, ho­mo­sex­u­als or peo­ple liv­ing on the earn­ings of such; or peo­ple rea­son­ably sus­pect­ed as com­ing to T&T for these and oth­er im­moral pur­pos­es. The re­port said: "Al­though these pro­vi­sions are not en­forced, they con­tribute to cre­at­ing a dis­crim­i­na­to­ry en­vi­ron­ment against les­bian, gay and trans­gen­der per­sons."

Ex­ces­sive use of force by po­lice

The re­port said ex­ces­sive use of force by mem­bers of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) was wide­spread.

It said at least 79 peo­ple were killed in 2008 and 2009. "In most cas­es, wit­ness tes­ti­monies and oth­er ev­i­dence sug­gest­ed the killings might have been un­law­ful," de­spite po­lice of­fi­cers claim­ing they act­ed in self-de­fence, the re­port stat­ed. It list­ed the case of Tris­tan Cob­bler who was al­leged­ly shot by po­lice in Jan­u­ary last year. Cob­bler called his moth­er, say­ing he had been shot in the leg by po­lice and was hid­ing in a bushy area in Men­tor Al­ley, Laven­tille. His moth­er found him dead where he said he was hid­ing. His au­top­sy re­vealed that he died from mul­ti­ple gun­shot wounds to the leg, neck, back and chest. The re­port said: "Mech­a­nisms to hold mem­bers of the Po­lice Ser­vice ac­count­able for al­leged abus­es are weak." It rec­om­mend­ed that the Gov­ern­ment en­sured all com­plaints of hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions by se­cu­ri­ty forces be sub­ject­ed to im­me­di­ate, thor­ough and in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion and that those found re­spon­si­ble should be brought to tri­al in an ex­pe­di­tious man­ner.

The re­port said while there was an amend­ment to the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty Act in 2007, en­abling it to in­ves­ti­gate crim­i­nal of­fences in­volv­ing po­lice of­fi­cers, cor­rup­tion and mis­con­duct, the laws were still am­bigu­ous about cer­tain pow­ers. "The au­thor­i­ty's work was al­so ham­pered by it hav­ing no di­rec­tor for al­most three years un­til De­cem­ber 2010. "A back­log of 1,000 com­plaints was re­port­ed in Feb­ru­ary 2011," the re­port stat­ed.

To ad­dress this prob­lem, Amnesty In­ter­na­tion­al rec­om­mend­ed that the Gov­ern­ment amend the Act to en­sure the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty had the nec­es­sary pow­ers to in­ves­ti­gate all al­leged mis­con­duct and al­le­ga­tions of hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions by mem­bers of the po­lice force, in­clud­ing killings and tor­ture and oth­er cru­el, in­hu­mane or de­grad­ing treat­ment. It al­so rec­om­mend­ed that mem­bers of the TTPS be ad­e­quate­ly trained in the ap­pro­pri­ate use of force and firearms in ac­cor­dance with in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards.

"The pro­fes­sion­al con­duct of the Po­lice Ser­vice has been scru­ti­nised on a num­ber of oc­ca­sions, es­pe­cial­ly in the light of high in­ci­dence of vi­o­lent crime and the fail­ure to bring po­lice of­fi­cers re­spon­si­ble for abus­es to jus­tice," the re­port said. It not­ed the "dis­turbing­ly" high num­ber of dis­ci­pli­nary charges against of­fi­cers, a need to com­bat the in­creased lev­els of in­dis­ci­pline with the ser­vice and "a se­ri­ous lack of ac­count­abil­i­ty from top to bot­tom." The re­port blamed the short­ages of judges and lawyers for the heavy back­logs in the courts and lengthy pre-tri­al de­ten­tions. It called on the Gov­ern­ment to in­crease the num­ber of state at­tor­neys; pro­vide ad­e­quate pro­tec­tion to state wit­ness­es in crim­i­nal tri­als and take the nec­es­sary mea­sures to re­duce court back­logs, ex­pe­dite tri­als and re­duce the length of pre-tri­al de­ten­tions in keep­ing with in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards for fair tri­al.

Jus­tice for fe­male vic­tims un­sat­is­fac­to­ry

Amnesty In­ter­na­tion­al said ac­cess to jus­tice for fe­male vic­tims of sex­u­al of­fences was un­sat­is­fac­to­ry.

In 2009, the con­vic­tion rate for such of­fences was three per cent. The re­port said the rea­son for the low rate in­clud­ed re­luc­tance on the part of vic­tims to at­tend court for fear of vic­tim­i­sa­tion; de­lays in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion; lack of con­fi­dence in the ju­di­cial sys­tem; and a lack of sup­port ser­vices. It said the Gov­ern­ment had to in­crease the num­ber of shel­ters for fe­male vic­tims, en­sure sat­is­fac­to­ry in­ves­ti­ga­tion and pros­e­cu­tion of cas­es of gen­der-based vi­o­lence and train po­lice of­fi­cers to deal with com­plaints of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence. The re­port said: "Women's or­gan­i­sa­tions be­lieve that sex­u­al and do­mes­tic crimes go un­der-re­port­ed be­cause the po­lice are not ad­e­quate­ly trained in how to deal with cas­es of vi­o­lence against women." It list­ed po­lice sta­tis­tics show­ing 632 rapes in 2010. The re­port said gen­der-based dis­crim­i­na­tion and vi­o­lence against women and girls, in­clud­ing sex­u­al vi­o­lence were wide­spread.