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Wednesday, July 16, 2025

Ramesh: Anti-Gang Act flawed from day one

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20160531

The An­ti-Gang Act in its cur­rent forms can have far-reach­ing con­se­quences which can re­sult in mur­der cas­es be­ing thrown out, says for­mer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Ramesh Ma­haraj.

He said the leg­is­la­tion was flawed from day one and for­mer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan ig­nored calls to take a sec­ond look at it.

"You are go­ing to make it very com­pli­cat­ed to charge them (al­leged gang mem­bers) with be­ing gang mem­bers and be­ing in­volved in oth­er crimes be­cause then you would be com­pro­mis­ing the oth­er crimes," he said.

"Let's say they are be­ing charged with be­ing mem­bers of a gang and al­so mur­der. The mur­der charge could al­so be com­pro­mised. It is an­oth­er in­di­ca­tion of how the last gov­ern­ment act­ed reck­less­ly in re­spect to some of the laws that were passed in this coun­try,"

Ma­haraj's com­ments fol­lowed calls by Se­nior Mag­is­trate In­drani Ce­de­no for the Act to be amend­ed. She did so last Fri­day as charges were dis­missed against 13 peo­ple ac­cused of be­ing part of the gang re­port­ed­ly re­spon­si­ble for the mur­der of Se­nior Coun­sel Dana See­ta­hal. See­ta­hal was shot dead on May 4, 2014, while on her way home at One Wood­brook Place.

The DPP's Of­fice ad­mit­ted to lay­ing the charges in­dictably in­stead of sum­mar­i­ly as pre­scribed by the leg­is­la­tion. Ce­de­no said an amend­ment of the charges could not be per­mit­ted as she felt the ac­cused would be prej­u­diced by it. The penal­ty for the of­fence is greater on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion than for con­vic­tion be­fore a judge and ju­ry.

The mag­is­trate al­so crit­i­cised the DPP's of­fice for its de­lay in seek­ing the amend­ment, as she said it should have been no­ticed at the pre­lim­i­nary stage. The DDP's of­fice can­not now re-lay the gang charges against the men as the six-month win­dow for do­ing so has ex­pired.

Ma­haraj, who agreed with Ce­de­no, said he was one of sev­er­al peo­ple who made pub­lic state­ments about the leg­is­la­tion be­ing de­fec­tive.

"The leg­is­la­tion should not have been passed in the way it was passed. In­stead of us­ing that leg­is­la­tion to pun­ish gang mem­bers the leg­is­la­tion would in­stead be used in a way in which gang mem­bers would not be prop­er­ly con­vict­ed," he said.

Ma­haraj who said blame was square­ly on the shoul­ders of the then PP Gov­ern­ment, said the pub­lic's in­ter­est was com­pro­mised.

"It was de­fec­tive. It is com­plete­ly hope­less as it is not the ba­sis of a prop­er con­vic­tion at all. I am glad that the mag­is­trate has been able to show them that," he said.

He added that there was al­ready leg­is­la­tion in place to deal with crim­i­nal gangs, so the An­ti-Gang Act was un­nec­es­sary. it was used just be­fore the state of emer­gence was cre­at­ed and there­fore was "used as a po­lit­i­cal tool", he said.


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