Yvonne Ba­boolal

Jus­tice Min­is­ter Her­bert Vol­ney is call­ing for dri­ving bans, in­creased fines and traps for dri­vers who ex­ceed the speed lim­it. He said it's time for a puni­tive rem­e­dy for the out-of-con­trol road car­nage as ap­peals to mo­torists to dri­ve safe­ly seem to be falling on deaf ears.

Vol­ney made the call yes­ter­day, hours af­ter se­nior Court of Ap­peal Judge Wen­dell Kan­ga­loo was in­volved in a car crash in Trinci­ty in which four peo­ple died. Kan­ga­loo was tak­en to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in crit­i­cal con­di­tion. "He re­mains in crit­i­cal con­di­tion," Jones P Madeiria, court pro­to­col and in­for­ma­tion man­ag­er, said yes­ter­day.

Kan­ga­loo, horse rac­ing en­thu­si­ast, was on his way to the Ari­ma Race Club in San­ta Rosa, Madeira said. Vol­ney told the T&T Guardian that Kan­ga­loo was his for­mer col­league and close friend. "Let's not think the worst...We are pray­ing for the best," he said. Turn­ing his at­ten­tion to the is­sue of reck­less dri­ving, he asked: "Why is it these ac­ci­dents keep hap­pen­ing?

"I don't know what kind of peo­ple we have dri­ving on the road...The road car­nage is out of con­trol," he said. "All ef­forts (to en­cour­age peo­ple to dri­ve safer) are falling on deaf ears. It seems like we have to in­tro­duce stronger med­i­cine for peo­ple who speed.

"When you speed, it kills peo­ple. I think the Li­cens­ing De­part­ment and the Trans­port Min­istry will have to make it very puni­tive now. "They have to start putting speed traps, in­crease the fines and put peremp­to­ry bans on dri­ving when peo­ple cross the speed lim­it. "If two ve­hi­cles are trav­el­ling at a mod­est speed, the chance of an ac­ci­dent oc­cur­ring is se­vere­ly min­imised."

Vol­ney said he has been fol­low­ing what has been hap­pen­ing with Kan­ga­loo through Health Min­is­ter Dr Fuad Khan, who is in Gene­va, and through his own se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel. He said Kan­ga­loo is the most se­nior judge in the coun­try at this time. "He was on the Bench even be­fore Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie. He came in 1996. I was there in 1994."

Trac­ing Kan­ga­loo's ca­reer, he said: "He has been at the Court of Ap­peal for the last ten years, where he is se­nior judge. "That is the num­ber two po­si­tion in the ju­di­cia­ry. "He is very, very ex­pe­ri­enced and quite a schol­ar, too. He has writ­ten many land­mark judg­ments. "I hope he comes through and can per­form like be­fore. It's quite trag­ic, this ac­ci­dent."

Kan­ga­loo was act­ing as Chief Jus­tice in the ab­sence of Archie who was in New York. In state­ment late yes­ter­day, the ju­di­cia­ry ex­pressed "heart­felt thanks and ap­pre­ci­a­tion to the med­ical and oth­er per­son­nel, both at the Ari­ma Health Fa­cil­i­ty where Mr Jus­tice Kan­ga­loo was tak­en ini­tial­ly, and at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Com­plex, for their care and at­ten­tion.

"The ju­di­cia­ry wish­es to iden­ti­fy with the Kan­ga­loo fam­i­ly and the rel­a­tives of of­fi­cers For­tune and Cae­sar in these dis­tress­ing mo­ments, as well as to ex­tend its con­do­lences to the fam­i­lies of the per­sons who died as a re­sult of the ac­ci­dent," the state­ment said.

"The ju­di­cia­ry seeks the prayers of all well-wish­ers dur­ing these most dif­fi­cult times for the speedy re­cov­ery of Jus­tice Kan­ga­loo, and for heal­ing among those fam­i­lies who lost loved ones in the ac­ci­dent."