Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor - Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

De­spite the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) get­ting set to host con­sul­ta­tions on the pro­posed stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion next week, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al says the Bill will be brought be­fore Par­lia­ment be­fore the year’s end.

Yes­ter­day, Guardian Me­dia asked John Je­re­mie for an up­date as to when the Home In­va­sion (Self-De­fence and De­fence of Prop­er­ty) Bill, 2025, which is of­ten re­ferred to as the stand-your-ground bill, will come to Par­lia­ment.

Re­spond­ing via What­sApp, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al said, “The con­sul­ta­tions are prac­ti­cal­ly over. We are on tar­get to get to the Par­lia­ment.”

Je­re­mie ex­plained Gov­ern­ment is on course to bring the bill to Par­lia­ment be­fore the end of the year.

He de­clined to say which month the bill would be pre­sent­ed or whether feed­back from the con­sul­ta­tions had prompt­ed amend­ments to the draft leg­is­la­tion.

The Gov­ern­ment host­ed sev­er­al con­sul­ta­tions in Trinidad; how­ev­er, there were no re­ports of any hap­pen­ing in PNM-con­trolled con­stituen­cies.

Speak­ing yes­ter­day, PNM Chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les ar­gued, “To sup­port our po­si­tion re­gard­ing their so-called con­sul­ta­tions, they ab­sent­ed them­selves from PNM con­stituen­cies. Is it that peo­ple who live in PNM con­stituen­cies are not cit­i­zens? Why dis­re­spect our con­stituen­cies like this? It is un­for­tu­nate that the Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to op­er­ate like a gov­ern­ment on­ly to those they per­ceive as vot­ing for the UNC.”

Gon­za­les said the PNM will host its con­sul­ta­tions next week.

He does not be­lieve it will be an ex­er­cise in fu­til­i­ty, giv­en the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s state­ment that con­sul­ta­tions are prac­ti­cal­ly over.

“We will bring the truth­ful­ness of the bill and the in­tent of the Gov­ern­ment to the pop­u­la­tion dur­ing our con­sul­ta­tion,” he as­sert­ed.

Gon­za­les added, “The PNM is of the view that the Gov­ern­ment did not hold re­al pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions. They were, in fact, UNC meet­ings dis­guised as ‘con­sul­ta­tions’ with plant­ed per­sons in the au­di­ence to ask self-serv­ing po­lit­i­cal ques­tions and state­ments.”

The pro­posed bill aims to es­tab­lish a statu­to­ry right to self-de­fence and de­fence of prop­er­ty in cas­es of home in­va­sion. It would per­mit home­own­ers to use legal­ly owned firearms against in­trud­ers, sub­ject to a “rig­or­ous screen­ing process” and “com­pe­ten­cy test” for firearm hold­ers.

The leg­is­la­tion al­so seeks to de­fine home in­va­sion as a dis­tinct crim­i­nal of­fence, while out­lin­ing ex­cep­tions to the right of self-de­fence, in­clud­ing in­stances where a po­lice of­fi­cer is law­ful­ly car­ry­ing out their du­ties.

It was a main cam­paign promise of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) pri­or to its sweep­ing elec­tion on April 28.