Law reform needed for prisoners

Responding to questions on whether the justice system should place a man in prison with hardened criminal for the nonpayment of maintainance, Attorney General John Jeremie conceded yesterday  that there was an argument for law reform in that area. “You can argue with good grounds in our society that the justice system should be focused more on the more serious offences,” he said. He said the Ministry of National Security was currently in the process of drafting a sentencing policy which would provide for imprisonment, and other forms of punishment. He said Government regretted the death of the prisoner, Ignatius Owen.

The AG said Owen was lawfully in prison, after receiving due process under the Constitution and being sentenced in accordance with an order of a court. On the corruption matters, the AG said he could not see how things could proceed at a faster pace. “The system as a whole cannot cope with anything more. We have a finite number of judges, a finite number of magistrates. And we are pretty close to capacity. The Airport case is the largest fraud case we have ever tried in Trinidad and Tobago, both in terms of complexity, numbers involved and the resources required to be before the court at any one time,” he said. He said the wheels of justice turn slowly, but he believed that they would turn.