Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment is warn­ing that the pro­posed Home In­va­sion (Self De­fence of Prop­er­ty) Bill, 2025, law does not ex­empt a home­own­er from due process when a dead­ly in­ci­dent oc­curs at their home. The Op­po­si­tion is stress­ing that the stand-your-ground law, as it is be­ing called, is nei­ther a get-out-of-jail-free card nor a panacea for crime.

Speak­ing dur­ing the par­ty’s first con­sul­ta­tion on the pro­posed law at City Hall, Port-of-Spain, on Thurs­day, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les re­mind­ed the crowd of a state­ment made by De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge that the leg­is­la­tion would al­low a home­own­er to shoot a per­pe­tra­tor in the back and be vin­di­cat­ed.

“One of the things that I would say that I am con­cerned with is to en­sure that the pub­lic is aware that when you are a per­pe­tra­tor, the im­pres­sion that is cre­at­ed, that un­der this stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion, and some­thing hap­pens at your home, that af­ter the in­ci­dent, peo­ple could com­fort­ably just walk free based on the leg­is­la­tion. And a lot of peo­ple feel that is what stand-your-ground means. In­ci­dent hap­pens, some­how there’s some kind of jus­ti­fi­ca­tion, and there isn’t a pro­ce­dure to take place. And that is one of the most im­por­tant points that we have to be con­scious of,” she said.

Se­nior coun­sel Lar­ry Lal­la shared that he had the same con­cerns. He warned that the bill is not a get-out-of-jail-free card, but in­stead can ac­tu­al­ly land some­one in prison.

He said, based on the con­sul­ta­tions done by the Gov­ern­ment, he was not sure peo­ple un­der­stood that they are not al­lowed to kill some­one just for en­ter­ing their prop­er­ty.

“I’m not too cer­tain that peo­ple re­al­ly un­der­stand from every­thing that has tak­en place so far that is the re­al im­pli­ca­tion of what they’re be­ing told, this big change in the law is go­ing to be.”

He added that one thing lack­ing from the bill found in oth­er coun­tries is an im­mu­ni­ty hear­ing. This, he said, gives the home­own­er the op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­mand to go be­fore a judge to ex­plain that dis­pro­por­tion­ate force was used.

“In oth­er words, they have not in­clud­ed in the bill that im­mu­ni­ty pro­vi­sion which could pre­vent per­sons from hav­ing to wait in cus­tody for a long time for a tri­al if they are charged, hav­ing stood their ground.”

Mar­ry­ing the con­ver­sa­tion to com­ments made by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on the US at­tack on a ves­sel, where she en­cour­aged sup­posed drug smug­glers to be killed vi­o­lent­ly, Lal­la said that it fu­els a think­ing of dead­ly pun­ish­ment with­out due process.

Re­spond­ing to a ques­tion from a mem­ber of the au­di­ence about the psy­cho­log­i­cal im­pact of the pro­posed law, Lal­la said: “Are we com­mu­ni­cat­ing to the psy­che of our pub­lic that it is okay to kill per­sons with­out due process? And at the same time, they’re at­tempt­ing to bring this type of leg­is­la­tion in­to place. And I think it is some­thing that should cause us to pause and think very care­ful­ly where we are go­ing as a so­ci­ety and de­cide whether we re­al­ly want to go there.”

One at­tendee, who said he was a vic­tim of a home in­va­sion, ad­vised that more po­lice pa­trols are need­ed in­stead of arm­ing cit­i­zens. The man, who said he lived for a while in Nige­ria, re­called how he felt and how he want­ed to harm those who broke in­to his home when he was not there. He said the first thing that came to my mind was to chop some­one.

“So, imag­ine if I was ac­tu­al­ly home, what would have hap­pened to those peo­ple? I would have done it,” he said.

He added, “Talk­ing about stand-your-ground law, you’re en­cour­ag­ing peo­ple to go and get firearms to pro­tect them­selves. Hav­ing peo­ple with firearms in a com­mu­ni­ty, I’ve lived here enough to know that peo­ple are very emo­tion­al and very trig­ger-hap­py.”

The pro­posed leg­is­la­tion will need the sup­port of the In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors to be­come law, as the Gov­ern­ment al­ready has the de­cid­ing votes in Par­lia­ment. Lal­la said the Op­po­si­tion con­sul­ta­tions are aimed at pos­si­bly per­suad­ing the In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors to re­ject the bill when­ev­er it comes be­fore them.

Mean­while, Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein said Lal­la’s claims about the pro­posed bill are wrong.

Speak­ing out­side Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Ho­sein said it was not true to say that should a home­own­er kill an in­trud­er, they will be charged and can on­ly use the stand your ground de­fence in court.

“If he ex­am­ines clause 7 and 8 of the bill, and then com­pare that with the ex­ist­ing com­mon law, which is the cur­rent law, you will see that he is ab­solute­ly wrong in his com­ments and his state­ments. So, it’s reck­less for him to make such pop­ulist state­ments, es­pe­cial­ly when de­bat­ing such an im­por­tant mat­ter of home in­va­sion.”