DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) have con­firmed plans to stage pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions on the pro­posed stand-your-ground law (Self-De­fence and De­fence of Prop­er­ty) Bill, 2025, in the com­ing weeks.

PNM chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les said that, while the gov­ern­ment has not en­gaged the par­ty di­rect­ly, its cau­cus has al­ready been con­sult­ing with le­gal ex­perts.

He ex­plained that their at­tor­neys’ rec­om­men­da­tions will be re­viewed at an up­com­ing cau­cus be­fore the par­ty moves to a wider fo­rum.

“This will be com­plet­ed with­in the next week. Once the cau­cus ex­am­ines the find­ings of the le­gal team, we will then pro­ceed to con­duct our own con­sul­ta­tion on this very im­por­tant mat­ter,” Gon­za­les said.

He added that the PNM’s con­sul­ta­tions would be open to the pub­lic.

“The PNM will be host­ing re­al pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions where all mem­bers of the pub­lic will be in­vit­ed to at­tend,” he said, adding, “Un­like the UNC, who held ‘UNC pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions’ with paid plants in­side the meet­ings who were pre­pared in ad­vance to ask cer­tain ques­tions and make po­lit­i­cal­ly con­ve­nient state­ments for the UNC.”

In To­ba­go, TPP mem­ber and To­ba­go East MP David Thomas con­firmed that their pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion will take place next week.

He said the fo­rum will be cen­tralised to al­low wide par­tic­i­pa­tion, with the Shaw Park Cul­tur­al Com­plex the like­ly venue. Trans­porta­tion will be pro­vid­ed for at­ten­dees across the is­land.

Thomas ex­plained that the pan­el is be­ing fi­nalised to in­clude voic­es from To­ba­go, the pri­vate sec­tor, and pos­si­bly out­side ex­perts.

He said the process is be­ing guid­ed by the Chief Sec­re­tary and stressed the im­por­tance of in­clu­sive di­a­logue.

“I would ask them (To­bag­o­ni­ans) not to be anx­ious. I think they have two Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment who un­der­stand the To­ba­go peo­ple and who would put all the struc­tures in place to make sure that the To­ba­go peo­ple are suf­fi­cient­ly ex­posed and in­clud­ed in all the con­ver­sa­tions that are like­ly to im­pact on the na­tion­al scale,” he said.

Re­peat­ed re­quests for an up­date from the gov­ern­ment on the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion have gone unan­swered.

At­tempts were made to con­tact Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie, Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein, Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Bar­ry Padarath, De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge and Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der.

Sturge said on­ly the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al was best placed to re­spond.

The gov­ern­ment had pre­vi­ous­ly an­nounced plans to hold con­sul­ta­tions across all 41 con­stituen­cies.

How­ev­er, Min­is­ter Ho­sein in­di­cat­ed last month that the process was near­ing com­ple­tion, with the leg­is­la­tion ex­pect­ed to be tabled in Par­lia­ment when the new ses­sion be­gins.

When asked whether the gov­ern­ment planned to in­clude any of the 13 PNM con­stituen­cies, he side­stepped the ques­tion, di­rect­ing re­porters to Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les for a re­sponse.

The pro­posed law seeks to broad­en the right of in­di­vid­u­als to de­fend them­selves and their prop­er­ty against in­trud­ers.

It has trig­gered na­tion­al de­bate, with sup­port­ers view­ing it as a nec­es­sary mea­sure against vi­o­lent crime, while crit­ics have warned about the risk of mis­use.

Pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions have al­ready been held in Barataria/San Juan, Tu­na­puna, To­co/San­gre Grande and Siparia, the lat­ter host­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

The pend­ing stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion pro­pos­es to ex­pand the le­gal rights of in­di­vid­u­als to use force, in­clud­ing dead­ly force if nec­es­sary, when de­fend­ing them­selves or their prop­er­ty against in­trud­ers or per­ceived threats.

Un­der the bill, a per­son would not have a le­gal du­ty to re­treat be­fore act­ing in self-de­fence, once their re­sponse is deemed rea­son­able in the cir­cum­stances.

Sup­port­ers ar­gue the mea­sure is aimed at em­pow­er­ing cit­i­zens to pro­tect them­selves amid ris­ing vi­o­lent crime, while crit­ics cau­tion that it could en­cour­age vig­i­lan­tism and in­crease the risk of un­nec­es­sary or ex­ces­sive use of force.