The Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go is call­ing on the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) and oth­er rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties to launch an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the leak of con­fi­den­tial in­for­ma­tion sur­round­ing a re­port of sex­u­al as­sault made by a ju­nior at­tor­ney against a se­nior le­gal prac­ti­tion­er.

In a state­ment to­day, the As­so­ci­a­tion said those re­spon­si­ble for the “un­law­ful and un­eth­i­cal con­duct” must be held ac­count­able, as the in­ci­dent rep­re­sents a se­ri­ous breach of pri­va­cy and le­gal pro­tec­tions.

The As­so­ci­a­tion ex­pressed grave con­cern over the on­line cir­cu­la­tion of the vir­tu­al com­plainant’s name, im­age, and de­tails of her state­ment to the po­lice, which are now wide­ly shared across so­cial me­dia plat­forms.

It re­mind­ed the pub­lic that Sec­tion 32 of the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act, Chap. 11:28, makes it a crim­i­nal of­fence to pub­lish or broad­cast any in­for­ma­tion like­ly to lead to the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of a com­plainant in a sex­u­al of­fences mat­ter. This law, the As­so­ci­a­tion stressed, ap­plies to both tra­di­tion­al and dig­i­tal me­dia users.

“The ra­tio­nale be­hind this pro­hi­bi­tion is to pro­tect vic­tims of sex­u­al of­fences from fur­ther trau­ma, stig­ma, and pub­lic scruti­ny,” the As­so­ci­a­tion said. “The unau­tho­rised dis­clo­sure of sen­si­tive in­for­ma­tion not on­ly breach­es the law but al­so un­der­mines the dig­ni­ty, pri­va­cy, and safe­ty of the per­sons in­volved.”

It al­so warned that this trou­bling in­ci­dent forms part of a broad­er and in­creas­ing­ly com­mon trend in Trinidad and To­ba­go—the leak­ing of po­lice ev­i­dence, crime scene footage, wit­ness state­ments, and oth­er sen­si­tive ma­te­ri­als meant to re­main in the cus­tody of in­ves­tiga­tive au­thor­i­ties.

“This must not be­come the norm. The pro­tec­tion of the jus­tice sys­tem de­pends on main­tain­ing the con­fi­den­tial­i­ty of such ma­te­r­i­al un­til due process is fol­lowed,” it said.

The As­so­ci­a­tion al­so is­sued a di­rect ap­peal to the pub­lic, es­pe­cial­ly so­cial me­dia users, urg­ing them to re­frain from re­post­ing or shar­ing any ma­te­r­i­al that vi­o­lates the law or could harm the in­di­vid­u­als in­volved.

“Let us all act with care, re­spect, and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty,” the state­ment con­clud­ed.