The debate on the Anti-Gang legislation in the Senate yesterday was but a continuing story on the failure of Government and the Opposition to see eye to eye on measures that will ultimately help the national security forces deal with the scourge of crime.
This is because the bill Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi presented was but a shadow of its intended self, having been diluted even more, we expect, only to ensure it could justifiably avoid the need for a three-fifths majority vote, since the opposition had long telegraphed that it would not support the previous version.
Debate is scheduled to continue on the bill in the Senate on March 16. However, we dare ask what the use of such legislation will be if it will ultimately still allow those it was intended to penalise for illegal activity, gang leaders and their recruits, to return to the streets in quick time to continue to distress law-abiding citizens on a daily basis. Citizens have probably lost count of how many times various bills aimed at eradicating the crime scourge - the Anti-Gang and Bail Bills also being among them - had to be substantially altered to suit Opposition arguments against certain measures. Of course, it has always been the Opposition’s counter-argument that proposed measures were substantially infringing on individuals’ rights to certain freedoms.
The real question, though, is whether the politicians on both sides of the House are in tune with the reality currently facing citizens as it relates to crime?
Even as they debated in the House, a lot of it merely political gimmickry for the cameras, more citizens were brutally murdered by gangsters, another woman was raped by a PH driver and bandits attacked another business owner. In all the incidents, the perpetrators brazenly carried out their attacks in broad daylight, seemingly emboldened by the fact that the existing laws would not deal with them severely enough for their transgressions.
The irony of all this is that some of these same politicians organised protests which saw participants calling for sweeping changes in legislation following the recent murder of court worker Andrea Bharatt. The emotions this activity sparked also spawned the activism which President Paula-Mae Weekes credited over the weekend and lent itself naturally to the continuing calls for laws to also protect women and girls, who have found themselves being targeted even more in recent times, during International Women’s Day on Monday.
Calls for stronger anti-gang law may now be a moot point given that AG Al-Rawi has already diluted the bill for yesterday's exercise. But this media house hopes that at some point in time, both sides of the House will give the citizens of this country, the laws that are truly needed to stave off the criminal element.