Shar­lene Ram­per­sad

Op­po­si­tion Leader, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in­tends to seek the sup­port of Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley to rein­tro­duce a draft bill in Par­lia­ment to pre­cept sol­diers with po­lice pow­ers.

Speak­ing at the Siparia Women's As­so­ci­a­tion Kid­dies Car­ni­val in Bhups­ingh Park, Pe­nal, yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the bill would help in the fight against the ris­ing crime rate.

She added: "I in­tend to seek sup­port of the Prime Min­is­ter for a pri­vate mem­bers bill which I in­tend to file in the Par­lia­ment to deal with pro­tect­ing sol­diers who are on du­ty with po­lice and pro­tect­ing civil­ians.

"What we had sought to do in 2013, we had brought the bill and it was called the in­fa­mous 'po­lice-sol­dier bill'.

"It is ex­act­ly the same thing the Gov­ern­ment has now pro­posed to do but the con­cerns they raised then are still con­cerns to­day."

Sol­diers have been de­ployed to as­sist po­lice in an­ti-crime op­er­a­tions fol­low­ing last month's dou­ble mur­der of two school­boys in Laven­tille.

In 2013, un­der then na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter, Jack Warn­er, the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (De­fence and Po­lice Com­plaints) Bill 2013 was laid in Par­lia­ment.

Then at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan told the na­tion at the time that the leg­is­la­tion in place, the De­fence Act of 1962, gave the reg­i­ment pow­er to act on­ly when a coun­try was un­der at­tack or dur­ing a state of emer­gency.

The bill was passed in the Low­er House on March 15, 2013 but did not get the sup­port of the Sen­ate.

Yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she had al­ready draft­ed a let­ter to Row­ley and hoped he sup­port­ed the bill but if he did not, she would bring it for de­bate as a pri­vate mem­bers bill.

Com­ment­ing on the ad­di­tion of two mem­bers to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said:

"We now have three per­sons there and I don't know what that says about Min­is­ter (Ed­mund) Dil­lon that he is now giv­en two ad­di­tion­al per­sons... what it says about his com­pe­ten­cy.

"I am pre­pared to give them the ben­e­fit of the doubt and we are pre­pared as the loy­al op­po­si­tion in this coun­try to con­tin­ue to con­tribute, to co-op­er­ate with gov­ern­ment when it comes to mat­ters of crime- fight­ing."