Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

A pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter aris­ing from the fa­tal jet ski ac­ci­dent that claimed the life of sev­en-year-old An­gel­i­ca Jo­gie at Pi­geon Point beach has been sent to the Di­vi­sion of Le­gal Af­fairs.

An­gel­i­ca’s par­ents have ini­ti­at­ed le­gal ac­tion against the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA), Pi­geon Point Her­itage Park and the al­leged jet ski op­er­a­tor.

On Ju­ly 15, Free­dom Law Cham­bers, rep­re­sent­ing Arnold Jo­gie, his wife Sal­isha Nar­ine-Jo­gie and their daugh­ter An­geli­na Jo­gie, sent the let­ter al­leg­ing that An­gel­i­ca’s death was caused by neg­li­gence and a breach of du­ty.

The let­ter claims that the THA was aware of the risks posed by jet skis op­er­at­ing near the pop­u­lar beach and should have tak­en pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sures to pro­tect bathers.

The at­tor­neys gave the par­ties 28 days to re­spond and in­di­cate whether li­a­bil­i­ty for the in­ci­dent would be ac­cept­ed. If li­a­bil­i­ty is de­nied, the Jo­gies in­tend to take the mat­ter to the High Court seek­ing dam­ages.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia on Tues­day, Sec­re­tary of Le­gal Af­fairs Adan­na Joseph-Wal­lace con­firmed that the THA had been served with the le­gal let­ter. How­ev­er, she de­clined to com­ment fur­ther on the mat­ter.

“All I will con­firm is that we have re­ceived the pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter and that is the stage we are at, and I am not able to give fur­ther de­tails at this time. Of course, it is en­gag­ing the at­ten­tion of us here at the Di­vi­sion of Le­gal Af­fairs,” she said.

At a spe­cial ple­nary sit­ting on April 23, the THA passed the Buc­coo Reef Ma­rine Park Bill, aimed at strength­en­ing over­sight of the ma­rine space while in­tro­duc­ing stiffer fines and oth­er penal­ties.

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has pre­vi­ous­ly raised con­cerns about the lack of en­force­ment of ma­rine park reg­u­la­tions by the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties.

Joseph-Wal­lace said the THA re­mains con­strained by its in­abil­i­ty to make laws gov­ern­ing ar­eas un­der its re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. She said while the THA has been giv­en re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the ma­rine space, it has not been giv­en the nec­es­sary au­thor­i­ty.

She said the THA is aware that the ab­sence of leg­is­la­tion af­fects man­age­ment of the ma­rine park and added that Trinidad and To­ba­go can learn lessons from the re­cent ma­rine tragedy in Guyana.

“If there is any­thing that we can learn, it’s the im­por­tance of a gov­ern­ment be­ing proac­tive, and we would hope it would mo­ti­vate those with the req­ui­site au­thor­i­ty to re­al­ly leg­is­late so that, even if we have sim­i­lar in­stances, per­sons can be held ac­count­able and the law can take its course,” Joseph-Wal­lace said.