Joshua Seemu­n­gal

The weak­ness of the coun­try’s in­de­pen­dent in­sti­tu­tions is large­ly re­spon­si­ble for the lev­el of so­cial un­rest seen in Port-of-Spain in the past few days, ac­cord­ing to Pres­i­dent of the Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion (DO­MA) Gre­go­ry Aboud.

In­sti­tu­tions like the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions and the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty, he said, need to be giv­en more in­de­pen­dence and pow­er to car­ry out their du­ties with­out pos­si­ble in­ter­fer­ence.

With­out this strength­en­ing, he claimed, pub­lic con­fi­dence in jus­tice will re­main un­der­mined.

“There are too many un­re­solved cas­es; too many un­solved mur­ders; too many episodes in which we are promised full in­ves­ti­ga­tions un­der which no re­sult comes about, ex­cept for a rep­e­ti­tion of the same re­sult again,” Mr Aboud said.

“We have to guar­an­tee every­one, re­gard­less of where we are sta­tioned in life, we have to guar­an­tee to every­one to every­one that they will be treat­ed just­ly and fair­ly,” he added.

People walk past stores along Frederick Street, Port-of-Spain, which closed early because of yesterday’s protests.

ROBERTO CODALLO

Ac­knowl­edg­ing that most Port-of-Spain-based busi­ness­es closed ear­ly on Tues­day as a re­sult of the protests, Aboud said the events had se­ri­ous con­se­quences for the econ­o­my, but al­so the so­cial sta­bil­i­ty of the coun­try.

For sta­bil­i­ty to be at­tained, he said, im­me­di­ate ac­tion must be tak­en.

“We have to have a so­ci­ety with strong in­sti­tu­tions ca­pa­ble of with­stand­ing scruti­ny when episodes like this hap­pen, and I be­lieve this is where our fo­cus should be right now,” DO­MA’s Pres­i­dent said.

He said fol­low­ing Fri­day’s killing of po­lice of­fi­cer Al­lan Mose­ley in Mor­vant, then the sub­se­quent po­lice-in­volved killing of three men in the area the next day, the coun­try needs as­sur­ances that jus­tice will be served.