Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Di­rec­tor of the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) Gillian Lucky is plan­ning to hold talks with At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan to have the PCA Act amend­ed so as to give more au­thor­i­ty and leg­isla­tive pow­er to those in­ves­ti­gat­ing se­ri­ous po­lice mis­con­duct and cor­rup­tion.She said so dur­ing the PCA's com­mu­ni­ty out­reach con­sul­ta­tion in the Prime Min­is­ter's Siparia con­stituen­cy on Tues­day night.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was ex­pect­ed to at­tend but failed to show up. Her rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Hy­acinth Ram­per­sads­ingh, said she had an­oth­er en­gage­ment.Lucky, who de­liv­ered the fea­ture ad­dress, called for amend­ments to the PCA Act. She al­so said the PCA would de­vel­op its own foren­sic sci­ence de­part­ment as well as hire a cadre of pro­fes­sion­als to do par­al­lel in­ves­ti­ga­tions on mat­ters in­volv­ing the po­lice and ex­plained why she felt that was need­ed.

"The PCA has a vi­tal role to play in the de­tec­tion rates. The PCA has the pow­er to in­ves­ti­gate crim­i­nal of­fences in­volv­ing po­lice of­fi­cers, po­lice cor­rup­tion and se­ri­ous po­lice mis­con­duct but too of­ten we do not get the co-op­er­a­tion from the po­lice," Lucky said.She ex­plained that the PCA need­ed more au­thor­i­ty and re­sources.She said: "We have the pow­er by law to mon­i­tor an in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­ing con­duct­ed and if we have to do par­al­lel in­ves­ti­ga­tions we will do it.

PCA in Siparia

"The po­lice are not do­ing us any favours about telling us when there are mat­ters in­volv­ing po­lice mis­con­duct. That is the law. Sec­tion 48, Sub Sec­tion 2 of the PCA Act states that the PCA has to be in­formed by writ­ing about mat­ters."But this is not hap­pen­ing. We should not have to beg the po­lice for in­for­ma­tion on a case. We have 20 cas­es where we re­quest­ed files but this has not been forth­com­ing."

Lucky said she spoke with act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams who promised to meet when he re­turned from abroad."He has agreed that when he re­turns from abroad, maybe around the mid­dle of May, we will hold dis­cus­sions. "In the mean­time, we will do what we have to do with the lit­tle we have."I am in dis­cus­sions with the ho­n­ourable At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, Anand Ram­lo­gan, and the Min­is­ter of Jus­tice, Christlyn Moore, and I have asked for a meet­ing to dis­cuss hav­ing mean­ing­ful amend­ments to the PCA Act," Lucky said.

More in­fo

She al­so said once there was a killing of a civil­ian and al­le­ga­tions of mis­con­duct against the po­lice, the PCA would be on the scene.She al­so said there were plans to open a PCA of­fice in To­ba­go as well as a satel­lite of­fice in San Fer­nan­do. She said peo­ple who want to re­port mat­ters against the po­lice could con­tact the hot­line 800-2PCA or 800-2722 or e-mail in­for­ma­tion con­fi­den­tial­ly to in­fo@pca.org.tt.