Rorey Gaya

Stu­dent, Hugh Wood­ing Law School

What is an ar­rest?

An ar­rest may be de­fined as the seiz­ing or touch­ing of some­one with the in­tent of re­strain­ing him. If the per­son be­ing ar­rest­ed knows that he can­not leave, then this con­sti­tutes an ar­rest. It should be not­ed that to hold a per­son against his will with­out ar­rest­ing him is an un­law­ful act.The law en­ables both po­lice of­fi­cers and pri­vate cit­i­zens alike to make ar­rests.

Pri­vate cit­i­zens' pow­er of ar­rest

It is the right and du­ty of every cit­i­zen to ar­rest any­one who, in his pres­ence, is ac­tu­al­ly breach­ing the peace or is threat­en­ing to breach the peace. Breach of the peace is de­fined as any act done or threat­ened to be done which ei­ther ac­tu­al­ly harms a per­son or, in his pres­ence, his prop­er­ty; or is like­ly to cause harm; or which puts some­one in fear of such harm be­ing done.

In ad­di­tion to the com­mon law pow­er to pre­vent a breach of the peace, sec­tion 3(2) of the Crim­i­nal Law Act, Chap. 10:04, grants the pow­er to any per­son to ar­rest with­out war­rant any­one who is, or who he, with rea­son­able cause, sus­pects to be, in the act of com­mit­ting an ar­restable of­fence. In T&T, an ar­restable/in­dictable of­fence is one for which the penal­ty is at least five years' im­pris­on­ment.

Po­lice of­fi­cers' pow­er of ar­rest

Po­lice of­fi­cers have the pow­er to ar­rest peo­ple both with and with­out war­rants.

Ar­rest with­out war­rant

For in­dictable of­fences, po­lice of­fi­cers have the same pow­er grant­ed to cit­i­zens un­der sec­tion 3 of the Crim­i­nal Law Act.Gen­er­al­ly, on­ly po­lice of­fi­cers have the pow­ers of ar­rest with­out war­rant for sum­ma­ry of­fences (oth­er­wise known as pet­ty of­fences).

Un­der sec­tion 104 of the Sum­ma­ry Courts Act, Chap. 4:20, an of­fi­cer may usu­al­ly ar­rest any per­son whom he finds in the act of com­mit­ting a sum­ma­ry of­fence. How­ev­er, if the ar­rest is not made at the time of the of­fence or im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter­wards, then the po­lice can­not pro­ceed by way of ar­rest with­out war­rant.

Ar­rest with war­rant

Po­lice of­fi­cers have the pow­er to ar­rest with a war­rant once a charge has been laid. To ob­tain a war­rant of ar­rest, a com­plaint (sum­ma­ry of­fence) or in­for­ma­tion (in­dictable of­fence) in writ­ing must be sworn to be­fore a mag­is­trate, or jus­tice of the peace, or ju­di­cial of­fi­cers in the mag­is­trates' court where an of­fend­er must first ap­pear.This is out­lined in sec­tions 106-107 of the Sum­ma­ry Courts Act above and sec­tions 8-9 of the In­dictable Of­fences (Pre­lim­i­nary In­quiry) Act, Chap. 12:01.

Rights up­on ar­rest

Un­der sec­tion 5(2)(c) of the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Re­pub­lic of T&T, Chap. 1:01, every ar­rest­ed per­son must be in­formed of the rea­son for his ar­rest, his right to an at­tor­ney, and must prompt­ly be brought be­fore the ap­pro­pri­ate ju­di­cial au­thor­i­ties. Fail­ure to dis­close this im­por­tant in­for­ma­tion may re­sult in an il­le­gal ar­rest.

This col­umn is not le­gal ad­vice.

If you have a le­gal prob­lem, you should con­sult a le­gal ad­vis­er.

Co-or­di­na­tor: Roshan Ram­char­i­tar