Even CJ against PIs

Speaking on Monday during debate in the Lower House on the Indictable Offences (Pre-Trial Procedure) Bill, 2017, Antoine said that even Chief Justice Ivor Archie, has expressed his opposition to keeping the PI system, which is a type of trial in which a magistrate listens to evidence and determines if a case should move to the full trial stage before a judge and jury in the High Courts.

Some PIs are over ten years old.

Antoine, reminded the Opposition that it was the UNC Government that contemplated the same objective in previous legislation, observing that they were unable to accomplish their intention because of Clause 34.

He said preliminary inquiries are not necessary in every matter and even CJ Archie lamented that preliminary inquiries are impeding the delivery of justice.

He said there are many young men in Remand Yard spending more time awaiting trial than the maximum sentence for the crime of which they are accused. He said this was an absurd situation and it makes more sense for someone who is innocent to plead guilty at the preliminary inquiry stage and be sentenced rather than to defend himself and spend years awaiting trial in the Remand Yard. Intoning that “Justice delayed is justice denied”, he said the Attorney General is trying to ensure that citizens get a speedy trial.

He challenged the Opposition, saying he didn’t understand why they were opposing the legislation because they had brought a bill to the House with a similar intent but were now raising all kinds of “red herrings.” MP for Caroni East Dr Tim Gopeesingh gave the background to the Administration of Justice (Indictable Offences) Bill which was brought by the then UNC government and said it was the same situation which the then government had tried to resolve. He said that bill would have removed more than 150,000 cases from the Magistrate’s Courts but whereas the UNC legislation proposed that a case be dismissed if the matter was not heard after ten years, the current PNM bill was proposing that if the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) had not preferred an indictment against an accused person within twelve months of charges being laid he would be able to apply to a judge to have his case discharged.

Dr Gopeesingh said this meant that the accused person could be freed after one year of charges being laid. He speculated that very few of the persons at Remand Yard have had an indictment laid against them by the DPP after one year, meaning that under the current legislation all of the people at Remand Yard could go free. He said the bill could not be supported as it was framed.

In any case he said the detection rate was so low that the legislation would not make any difference since no one was being held by the Police.

Also during the sitting, Caroni Central Dr Bhoe Tewarie said this country should prepare for mass deportations of citizens from the United States.

Dr Tewarie said US President Donald Trump is unpredictable and is using his executive power to test all of that country’s institutions. He said even healthy democracies such as the US run the risk of ending up with a dictatorship and this should be a lesson to this country that it must jealously guard its democracy.

Also contributing to debate, MP for D’Abadie/ O’Meara Ancil.