JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Wednesday, August 20, 2025

AG rolls out plan for smoother crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem...

National prosecutions structure coming

by

20161226

The de­tails of a na­tion­al pros­e­cu­tions struc­ture which en­tails trac­ing court da­ta so as to en­sure a smoother and bet­ter co­or­di­nat­ed crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem is ex­pect­ed to be made pub­lic next month.

"We are tak­ing the back­log and pre­pare them for tri­al and then we are go­ing to es­tab­lish a sin­gle unit to ac­tu­al­ly man­age this. This is very sim­i­lar to what the British calls a Crown Pros­e­cu­tion.

"You have to have na­tion­al pros­e­cu­tions in T&T co­or­di­nat­ed so the po­lice, the DPP and the ju­di­cia­ry need to have man­age­ment for all the pros­e­cu­tions that are done but un­til you re­alise where the bulk is then you can't pour the re­sources," Al-Rawi said.

Say­ing the man­age­ment of State pros­e­cu­tions has been in a state of "non-func­tion­al­i­ty" due to lack of struc­ture and re­sources for far too long, Al-Rawi said da­ta would show where the pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al fo­cus need­ed to be placed.

"The ex­er­cise is on­go­ing and would be com­plet­ed in stages be­gin­ning in Jan­u­ary and in­volves map­ping what the back­log and pros­e­cu­tion look like in the mag­is­trates' court, High Court, Po­lice Ser­vice and the DPP's of­fice.

"The fig­ures from the ju­di­cia­ry are near­ly com­plete, the fig­ures from the DPP are now crys­tallised and the fig­ures from the Po­lice Ser­vice are now be­ing for­malised," the AG said adding that there has not been ef­fec­tive co­or­di­na­tion on this.

Some 34 va­can­cies, across the board, were ex­pect­ed to be filled DPP's of­fice start­ing from next month.

Al-Rawi said nine­ty five per cent of pros­e­cu­tions at the mag­is­trates' court were con­duct­ed by the po­lice while DPP of­fi­cers did five per cent.

"Who man­ages that? How is that or­gan­ised? This is a huge ques­tion and that is why we have to track the load so that man­age­ment from a na­tion­al pros­e­cu­tions struc­ture can be done.

" I am work­ing on the cre­ation of a na­tion­al pros­e­cu­tions struc­ture be­cause un­less you man­age the 95 per cent that the po­lice does then the sys­tem goes no where, " the AG said.

Say­ing that the "mea­sur­ables" were un­known Al-Rawi said da­ta would be made pub­lic in the first quar­ter of next year.

"Right now we're talk­ing about crime but there is no raw da­ta. Does any­body in this coun­try know how many re­ports are re­ceived at a sta­tion on a month­ly ba­sis? How many of them move to­wards the mag­is­trates' court or the High Court?

"In oth­er words what are the re­ports vers­es charge vers­es con­vic­tion fig­ures re­al­ly look like? No­body knows what that fig­ure re­al­ly looks like and that fig­ure is go­ing to be made pub­lic very short­ly through the rev­e­la­tion of sta­tis­tics in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem at the mag­is­trate court, High Court and very im­por­tant­ly through sta­tis­tics from the Po­lice Ser­vice," Al-Rawi said.

In out­lin­ing some of the fac­tors re­vealed by the da­ta col­lat­ed thus far the AG said it has re­vealed that de­lays in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem have been caused by tri­al by ju­ry, pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry (PI), lack of re­sources at the DPP's of­fice , avail­abil­i­ty of court­room, wit­ness­es and judges.

Civ­il laws to deal with ev­i­dence was al­so an­oth­er fac­tor.

He said there must be a per­for­mance in­di­ca­tor to de­ter­mine how ef­fi­cient­ly the Po­lice Ser­vice was us­ing its monies from Gov­ern­ment, adding that a lot of the frus­tra­tion per­vad­ing T&T was a sense of hope­less­ness felt by cit­i­zens.

"Peo­ple say, 'I will not re­port this be­cause this will not be dealt with.' So let's fig­ure out what it re­al­ly is," Al-Rawi added.

He added that leg­is­la­tion to com­plete­ly abol­ish pre­lim­i­nary in­quiries was al­ready pre­pared and work was tak­ing place on a pub­lic de­fend­er sys­tem.

"So once your coun­sel is un­avail­able you will be ap­point­ed a coun­sel who is com­pe­tent but that has to be an amend­ment to re­or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Le­gal Aid and Ad­vi­so­ry Au­thor­i­ty. We are work­ing with the British Gov­ern­ment and the pub­lic de­fend­ers of­fice out of Eng­land on that par­tic­u­lar ap­proach," Al-Rawi added.

He said he had al­ready draft­ed a doc­u­ment re­gard­ing "judge on­ly tri­als by elec­tion" which was ex­pect­ed to be made pub­lic next year and which the AG al­so de­scribed as a "very con­tentious is­sue."

"Mean­ing you will have the choice of judge on­ly or not which is a ju­ry less po­si­tion be­cause there is such stout re­sis­tance to that po­si­tion but in our view it is some­thing which is ben­e­fi­cial to the coun­try and there­fore we need to come for­ward with da­ta on it," Al-Rawi said.

In the first quar­ter of next year video con­fer­enc­ing is ex­pect­ed to come on stream at re­mand as op­posed to trans­port­ing pris­on­ers back and forth every 28 or 17 days as the case maybe, he added.

?

$21 BIL­LION SPENT ON PO­LICE SER­VICE

This was the sum spent from 2006 to 2016 sole­ly on the Po­lice Ser­vice. But Al-Rawi said it was ev­i­dent that the flour­ish­ing nar­co-trade was the main dri­ver be­hind crim­i­nal­i­ty.

He said the po­lice com­mis­sion­er has the sole re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for man­ag­ing the ser­vice, adding it was on­ly he could "fire and fire with mean­ing­ful im­pact" un­der the law.

"The fo­cus up­on crime is the re­moval of the prof­its of crime and the mon­ey which sus­tains it has to be re­moved," the AG re­it­er­at­ed.

But on whether the coun­try had seen val­ue for mon­ey from the Po­lice Ser­vice Al-Rawi said this en­ti­ty was just one arm.

"But you had $21 bil­lion sole­ly for the Po­lice Ser­vice...what did you get for it? How many com­plaints were dealt with?" Al-Rawi ques­tioned.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored