The Gov­ern­ment will not per­mit in­di­vid­u­als to mis­use stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion to com­mit un­law­ful acts, says Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs Sad­dam Ho­sein.

Speak­ing at the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ con­sul­ta­tion on the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion at the Cal­drac Recre­ation Club, Dow Vil­lage, Cal­i­for­nia, on Wednes­day, Ho­sein stressed that the law must be bal­anced to en­sure ex­cep­tions are in place so that in all cas­es where dead­ly force is used, in­di­vid­u­als can­not es­cape jus­tice with­out scruti­ny.

He ex­plained that force can­not be used against some­one who has a le­git­i­mate right to be on the prop­er­ty.

“You have a hus­band and wife liv­ing in the same house. If the hus­band wants to kill the wife, or the wife wants to kill the hus­band, both have the right to be in the home. They can­not both claim that they are en­ti­tled to use dead­ly force against each oth­er. How­ev­er, if the hus­band tries to kill the wife with a gun and she re­tal­i­ates, she has the right to de­fend her­self.

“This is be­cause there are in­stances of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, and such mat­ters are for the courts and the pros­e­cu­tion to ex­am­ine,” Ho­sein said.

He em­pha­sised that in­di­vid­u­als can­not use “gross­ly dis­pro­por­tion­ate” force, such as in­ca­pac­i­tat­ing an in­trud­er and then at­tempt­ing to dis­mem­ber them.

“You can­not do those things—it is not nec­es­sary,” he added.

Ho­sein al­so warned that house­hold­ers can­not use dead­ly force against po­lice of­fi­cers act­ing law­ful­ly with a war­rant or oth­er le­gal au­thor­i­ty.

“What that does is give crim­i­nals a li­cense to kill po­lice when they come in­to your home,” he cau­tioned.

Ho­sein said the new leg­is­la­tion will cre­ate the of­fence of home in­va­sion, cod­i­fy the law on self-de­fence and grant prop­er­ty own­ers the right to de­fend their homes.

Cit­ing sta­tis­tics, he not­ed that there were 2,613 rob­beries in 2023 and 2,399 in 2024. Lar­ce­ny of dwelling house cas­es fell from 120 in 2023 to 112 in 2024. Mur­ders rose from 577 in 2023 to 625 in 2024.

“We were faced with an epi­dem­ic where crim­i­nals were in­vad­ing peo­ple’s homes, tak­ing their pos­ses­sions by force, beat­ing, killing and in­jur­ing them—and there was no of­fence called home in­va­sion on the law books. For ten years, the last ad­min­is­tra­tion did noth­ing about it,” Ho­sein said.

Un­der the new law, those con­vict­ed of home in­va­sion could face a fine of $500,000 and up to 20 years’ im­pris­on­ment. Mem­bers of gangs and those at­tack­ing the young or el­der­ly could face fines of $750,000 and up to 25 years in prison, and if the vic­tim dies, the per­pe­tra­tor could face the death penal­ty.

Ho­sein added that un­der cur­rent law, a home­own­er must ex­plain why they at­tacked some­one who en­tered their home un­law­ful­ly.

“This UNC Gov­ern­ment will re­store cit­i­zens’ right to en­joy their homes,” he said.

He con­firmed that un­der the up­com­ing leg­is­la­tion, oc­cu­pants will be al­lowed to use dead­ly force against home in­vaders, and that home­own­ers can al­so au­tho­rise oth­ers in the house to de­fend the prop­er­ty.

The min­is­ter ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment of mis­lead­ing the pub­lic in­to be­liev­ing that the Gov­ern­ment has no plan to tack­le crime.

“They have a fake nar­ra­tive that the Gov­ern­ment has no an­ti-crime plan. It’s one of two things: ei­ther they can’t read, or they’re out to lie and mis­lead,” Ho­sein as­sert­ed.

He said the Cab­i­net had adopt­ed the UNC man­i­festo as Gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy and that the stand-your-ground law was not a spur-of-the-mo­ment ini­tia­tive but part of their out­lined plan.

“This was our pol­i­cy. It was in the pipeline, and it will be de­liv­ered,” he said.

Ad­dress­ing the cur­rent State of Emer­gency (SoE), Ho­sein ar­gued that it was nec­es­sary, un­like the one en­act­ed in De­cem­ber 2024 by the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion. He said that SoE hap­pened on the night of a par­ty in To­ba­go.

“Stu­art Young came to Par­lia­ment and ad­mit­ted they de­cid­ed on de­clar­ing an SoE that night. That is why the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al said the last SoE was based on noth­ing. We had cer­tain in­for­ma­tion in our pos­ses­sion, and we had no choice but to act de­ci­sive­ly to desta­bilise what we con­sid­ered a crim­i­nal syn­di­cate,” he ex­plained.