Gail Alexan­der

Pro­fil­ing was used to de­tain peo­ple who were held re­cent­ly in the state of emer­gency, PNM sen­a­tor Faris Al Rawi said yes­ter­day. "When I vis­it­ed my client in the hold­ing cells of the court, I saw peo­ple with names like mine," Al Rawi told the Sen­ate yes­ter­day. Al Rawi, who had rep­re­sent­ed de­tainee Khalil Kara­math, in the re­cent is­sue, added: "Mr and Mrs Trinidad and To­ba­go, be­ware-you do not un­der­stand the ram­i­fi­ca­tions of this un­til it touch­es your fam­i­ly, your own peo­ple-your fa­ther, your moth­er, your broth­er." Al Rawi spoke about the state of emer­gency in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day, dur­ing de­bate on a bill to ex­pand the ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty of the Le­gal Aid Ad­vi­so­ry Au­thor­i­ty.

Jus­tice Min­is­ter Her­bert Vol­ney, who pi­lot­ed the bill, said it would ex­pand the pool of peo­ple ac­cess­ing le­gal aid and al­so in­crease fees for at­tor­neys tak­ing Le­gal Aid cas­es. He not­ed the re­luc­tance of some lawyers to take such cas­es-es­pe­cial­ly do­mes­tic vi­o­lence cas­es-since it paid lit­tle. Peo­ple earn­ing $20,000 and $36,000 over a year would now be qual­i­fied for le­gal aid. Peo­ple who have not been res­i­dent in T&T for six months and who have im­mi­gra­tion or traf­fick­ing cas­es can al­so ac­cess Le­gal Aid now. At­tor­neys' fees for le­gal aid work will al­so in­crease up to $30,000. Vol­ney said: "No more will a cit­i­zen be get­ting $10 ad­vice." Al Rawi in his con­tri­bu­tion, how­ev­er, said there was a large loop­hole in the bill-which pro­tects con­sti­tu­tion­al free­doms-since it did not al­low peo­ple de­tained un­der de­ten­tion or­ders to ac­cess Le­gal Aid.

He said T&T was still cel­e­brat­ing the end of the state of emer­gency and re­turn of con­sti­tu­tion­al free­doms. Stat­ing there were lessons which ought to have been learnt from the state of emer­gency, Al Rawi said the bill omit­ted a large cat­e­go­ry of peo­ple de­tained un­der the An­ti-Gang law and those de­tained on sus­pi­cion of ter­ror­ism. Deem­ing the state of emer­gency a "des­per­ate fail­ure, Al Rawi said the "dose of salts" which T&T had just ex­pe­ri­enced "is a very se­ri­ous thing" in which T&T had "107 days of sus­pen­sion of con­sti­tu­tion­al rights." He added: "But this bill does not per­mit de­tainees to have right of Le­gal Aid coun­sel."

Al Rawi said when he had rep­re­sent­ed one of those de­tained re­cent­ly and had gone to the cells to vis­it his client, he saw pro­fil­ing which the PNM had warned about in the An­ti-ter­ror­ism Bill de­bate. "When I went to the cells to see my client, I saw old and young with fear in their eyes in a de­ten­tion cen­tre...I was great­ly con­cerned," he said. "The state of emer­gency has end­ed, the Re­view Tri­bunal has ex­pired, there are no charges pend­ing, but at the time, I, as an at­tor­ney, could not ac­cess my client at the po­lice sta­tions. "My client was not per­mit­ted to speak to me as coun­sel. "My client was not per­mit­ted the right to see me for many days...He was de­tained No­vem­ber 21 and I didn't see him un­til No­vem­ber 24. "A se­ri­ous breach of rights will oc­cur if you're not per­mit­ted to see your at­tor­ney."