Shal­iza?Has­sanali

The Op­po­si­tion yes­ter­day ex­pressed a will­ing­ness to bring back to Par­lia­ment the con­tro­ver­sial Sec­tion 34 act (Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Jus­tice) bill to help the Gov­ern­ment ac­cel­er­ate cas­es through the court.

This was re­vealed by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley fol­low­ing crime talks with the Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her del­e­ga­tion.

Row­ley said while Per­sad-Bisses­sar threw her sup­port be­hind the abo­li­tion of tri­als by ju­ry, she al­so showed a will­ing­ness for the Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Jus­tice (In­dictable Pro­ceed­ings) Act.

"The oc­cur­rence of the in­fa­mous Sec­tion 34 would have pre­vent­ed us from go­ing down the road of treat­ing with the In­dictable Of­fences bill.

"The Op­po­si­tion ex­pressed a will­ing­ness for us to start over and get done what that bill had in­tend­ed to help us with, which is to ac­cel­er­ate cas­es through the court sys­tem. So that came up and we have some com­mit­ment to work with that with some dis­patch," Row­ley said.

In De­cem­ber 2011, the Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Jus­tice (In­dictable Pro­ceed­ings) Act was en­act­ed by both Hous­es of Par­lia­ment and re­ceived the as­sent of then Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards on De­cem­ber 16, 2011.

In­clud­ed in the act, how­ev­er, was Sec­tion 34, which pre­scribed a lim­i­ta­tion pe­ri­od of ten years in re­spect of cer­tain of­fences, ex­clud­ing trea­son, mur­der, kid­nap­ping, rape, as­sault, drug traf­fick­ing and arms and am­mu­ni­tion pos­ses­sion.

Both UNC sub­se­quent­ly had to re­peal the law af­ter it was learnt UNC fi­nanciers Ish Gal­barans­ingh and Steve Fer­gu­son, along with 37 oth­ers, stood to walk free of charges aris­ing of the Pi­ar­co Air­port case with the pas­sage of the leg­is­la­tion.

In Jan­u­ary 2016, the Privy Coun­cil in Lon­don ruled for the State in the Sec­tion 34 ap­peal brought by Fer­gu­son, Ameer Edoo & Mar­itime Life (Caribbean) Lim­it­ed.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi said Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so called for im­prove­ments in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, as it re­lat­ed to pre­lim­i­nary in­quiries and the speed at which tri­als moved.

"We were able to pro­vide the Op­po­si­tion with a list of 16 items (bills), which is just a snip­pet of some of the mat­ters which are ur­gent pri­or­i­ty mat­ters," Al-Rawi said.

These bills, Al-Rawi said, will take the prof­its out of crime and re­form the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.

"We are con­vinced that many of the laws stand on the books of Trinidad and To­ba­go and don't have the kind of im­pact in­to crime. We feel it is very crit­i­cal, as a coun­try, that we go be­hind the mon­ey...be­cause it is the mon­ey that fu­els crime."

Al-Rawi said they were pleased to dis­cuss the for­eign ter­ror­ist fight­ers bill, the bail amend­ments, the im­prove­ments of the FIU Act, Mo­tor Ve­hi­cle leg­is­la­tion and the In­come Tax act, as well as bills on gam­ing and bet­ting and civ­il as­set for­fei­ture.

On the crim­i­nal jus­tice side, Al-Rawi said they were hap­py to in­clude the in­dictable of­fences pre­lim­i­nary en­quiry, the abo­li­tion of crim­i­nal en­quiries, the fi­nal­i­sa­tion of whistle­blow­er pro­tec­tion and the un­mask­ing of own­ers be­hind com­pa­nies.

"This is open­ing the doors to shar­ing more in­for­ma­tion and cer­tain­ly so­lic­it­ing the views, so that we know ear­ly in the equa­tion what will or will not be ob­jec­tion­able and im­prov­ing that process of com­mu­ni­ca­tion," he said.

The AG said the Gov­ern­ment will al­so re­port to the coun­try about its op­er­a­tional im­prove­ments that have al­ready been ef­fect­ed.