SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds says there are cur­rent­ly 38 peo­ple out on bail for var­i­ous of­fences who are be­ing mon­i­tored through elec­tron­ic mon­i­tor­ing bracelets.

Hinds gave the in­for­ma­tion in re­sponse to ques­tions from Barataria/San Juan Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Sad­dam Ho­sein in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day.

“Dur­ing the pe­ri­od April 28, 2021 and March 15, 2022, 36 per­sons were fit­ted with elec­tron­ic mon­i­tor­ing bracelets, with an ad­di­tion­al two per­sons be­ing fit­ted on March 17 and March 21, 2022, bring­ing the to­tal to 38 per­sons,” Hinds said.

He then quipped, “It should be not­ed, how­ev­er, that the fit­ting of elec­tron­ic mon­i­tor­ing bracelets is de­pen­dent on per­sons ac­cess­ing bail.”

Hinds said the State cur­rent­ly has an “ad­e­quate” sup­ply of elec­tron­ic mon­i­tor­ing bracelets but al­so an­nounced plans to ac­quire more. The elec­tron­ic mon­i­tor­ing bracelet is to be worn on the an­kle of the ac­cused and con­tains GPS tech­nol­o­gy to track the move­ments of the wear­er.

In Ju­ly 2021, when the elec­tron­ic mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem was launched, Hinds said the de­vices would al­low the State to mon­i­tor those ac­cused of crimes with­out hav­ing them in­car­cer­at­ed.

“We have an ad­e­quate sup­ply at this time, but in an­tic­i­pa­tion of the bail cir­cum­stances as they flowed re­cent­ly in our courts and in an­tic­i­pa­tion of the in­creas­es in do­mes­tic vi­o­lence and sim­i­lar kinds of is­sues with­in re­cent times, we are in the process of ob­tain­ing even more,” Hinds said.

Ho­sein al­so tried to raise ad­di­tion­al queries about the staffing of the Elec­tron­ic Mon­i­tor­ing Unit in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty but Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George did not al­low him to do so.

The bail cir­cum­stances Hinds was re­fer­ring to was the judg­ment made by Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie and Ap­pel­late Judges Mi­ra Dean-Ar­mor­er and Mal­colm Holdip, that the Bail Act of 1994, which pre­cludes the grant­i­ng of bail for peo­ple ac­cused of mur­der, was in­con­sis­tent with the Con­sti­tu­tion and should be struck down.

The ap­peal pan­el al­so ruled that a seg­ment of the leg­is­la­tion was not rea­son­ably jus­ti­fi­able in a so­ci­ety that is con­cerned about the rights of cit­i­zens and that it in­ter­fered with a core ju­di­cial func­tion. The Court of Ap­peal was rul­ing on a law­suit brought by Ak­ili Charles. The law­suit was sup­port­ed by the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T. The rul­ing now al­lows mur­der ac­cused to ap­ply for bail.

On March 24, mur­der ac­cused Joel King made his­to­ry as the first per­son to be grant­ed bail for mur­der. King is ac­cused of mur­der­ing Nkosi Har­richa­ran at Her­mitage Road in Bel­mont in April 2014. He was grant­ed $1.5 mil­lion bail with a sure­ty and giv­en a cash al­ter­na­tive of $750,000.

At that time, High Court Mas­ter Nali­ni Singh said she had raised the pos­si­bil­i­ty of King be­ing placed on the elec­tron­ic mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem but the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) re­fused, af­ter hav­ing dis­cus­sions with the Di­rec­tor of Elec­tron­ic Mon­i­tor­ing of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty.