Derek Achong

The Prison Ser­vice has done its part to fa­cil­i­tate the pro­posed move to re­lease some non-vi­o­lent in­mates due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. 

Dur­ing a sta­tus hear­ing of a law­suit brought by the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to help fa­cil­i­tate the process yes­ter­day, High Court Judge Lisa Ram­sumair-Hinds was in­formed that prison of­fi­cials had abid­ed by her pre­vi­ous or­der to pro­vide a se­ries of lists of pris­on­ers who may be el­i­gi­ble un­der the scheme. 

The lists were sent to the Reg­is­trar of the High Court, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith and Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard, SC, for their feed­back be­fore the process of de­ter­min­ing the ap­pro­pri­ate meth­ods re­quired to se­cure the re­leas­es take place. An­oth­er hear­ing is sched­uled for Sat­ur­day via video con­fer­enc­ing. 

When the pro­pos­al was an­nounced by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley last week, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi sug­gest­ed that ap­prox­i­mate­ly 400 pris­on­ers could ben­e­fit. 

The mea­sure main­ly af­fects adults and chil­dren who have been con­vict­ed of sum­ma­ry and in­dictable of­fences and were sen­tenced to un­der a year in prison or have less than a year re­main­ing on a high­er sen­tence. 

Per­sons who have not been con­vict­ed of such of­fences, but who were re­mand­ed be­cause they were un­able to ac­cess the bail ini­tial­ly set for them are al­so in­clud­ed. 

It will not ap­ply to per­sons con­vict­ed of or on re­mand for a se­ries of sched­uled of­fences which car­ry sen­tences of over ten years in prison. Such of­fences in­clude those un­der the An­ti-Gang Act, Of­fences Against the Per­son Act, Dan­ger­ous Drugs Act, Kid­nap­ping Act, Sex­u­al Of­fences Act, An­ti-Ter­ror­ism Act, Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Act and the Firearms Act. 

In the lit­i­ga­tion, the AG’s Of­fice has sug­gest­ed that the re­leas­es of con­vict­ed per­sons could be fa­cil­i­tat­ed through re­mis­sions by prison of­fi­cials and the com­mu­ta­tion of sen­tences by Pres­i­dent Paula Mae-Weekes, un­der her pow­er of par­don pre­scribed un­der Sec­tion 87 and 89 of the Con­sti­tu­tion. 

Those on bail will have to seek the vari­a­tions un­der the Bail Act in light of the cur­rent na­tion­al health sit­u­a­tion. 

While the AG’s Of­fice sug­gest­ed that per­sons who qual­i­fy based on its de­f­i­n­i­tions should be fa­cil­i­tat­ed, it not­ed that some can still be ex­clud­ed nonethe­less. 

“As the ex­er­cise un­der con­sid­er­a­tion in­volves Ju­di­cial dis­cre­tion and Pres­i­den­tial dis­cre­tion, any oth­er charge or of­fence not list­ed in the sched­ule may be ex­clud­ed due to the in­de­pen­dent as­sess­ment of the vi­o­lent and/or dan­ger­ous na­ture of the mat­ters in­volved in any case.

Ac­cord­ing­ly, the as­sess­ment of risk and need for pub­lic pro­tec­tion in­clud­ing vic­tim pro­tec­tion will al­ways re­main in cen­tral fo­cus,” a re­cent re­lease from the AG’s Of­fice stat­ed. 

The AG’s Of­fice is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Fyard Ho­sein, SC, Ravi Ra­j­coomar, Te­nille Ramkissoon, Jerome Ra­j­coomar, Aadam Ho­sein and Ryan Grant. At­tor­ney Ne­tram Kow­lessar rep­re­sent­ed the Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er, while John Heath rep­re­sent­ed the High Court Reg­is­trar. The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) was rep­re­sent­ed by its Head of Le­gal Chris­t­ian Chan­dler, while Shar­lene Jag­ger­nauth rep­re­sent­ed the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty.