The Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T says it is “to­tal­ly dis­ap­point­ed” that Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo failed to ad­dress the is­sues plagu­ing the coun­try’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing of 13th Re­pub­li­can Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day.

In a me­dia re­lease, the as­so­ci­a­tion said Kan­ga­loo failed to men­tion “a sin­gle sen­tence about the ab­ject fail­ure of the ad­min­is­tra­tion of crim­i­nal jus­tice in our coun­try.” “There are hun­dreds of per­sons who are pre­sumed to be in­no­cent, locked away in our pris­ons, await­ing tri­als and the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem is at a stand­still. Near­ly all the Mag­is­trates’ Courts in our coun­try are not func­tion­ing and the Crim­i­nal As­sizes Courts are mov­ing at a snail’s pace,” CBTT pres­i­dent Is­rael Khan, SC, said.

Khan added that it is moral­ly wrong that Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie “sit on his throne” while hun­dreds of ac­cused per­sons await tri­al dates in our courts.

“There are over 600 pend­ing in­quests in­volv­ing po­lice killing of per­sons and no in­quest courts are sched­uled to in­ves­ti­gate and hear the ev­i­dence in­volved in these mat­ters.”

Khan said there is a need for rough­ly 100 ad­di­tion­al lawyers for the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions’ (DPP) of­fice to ad­dress pend­ing crim­i­nal mat­ters.

“Not a word was said by the Pres­i­dent, and re­al­ly who are in our jails, pre­sumed to be in­no­cent, but yet in­car­cer­at­ed, the dis­pos­sessed and down­trod­den per­sons in our coun­try,” Khan said.