You do have the jurisdiction, sir

The flight arrived on time.

My relative waited until 5 pm and, not yet seeing her friends emerge, she phoned them. The response was that there were hundreds of people ahead of them waiting to clear immigration, there were only two officers and that it should take about two more hours.

My relative went to Trincity Mall and hung around for two hours and called again at 7 pm, only to be told by her friends that they were still in immigration and could not say how long again it would take. My relative advised her friends to take a taxi when they eventually came out.

Very few Trinidadians would be surprised at this situation in a country where the police could block the roads and shut down the country for a whole day on the pretext of checking vehicles. Up to today, no one has been held responsible for this and disciplined accordingly.

Or, a police officer could stop a vehicle on the Priority Bus Route (PBR) driven by a husband taking his pregnant wife to hospital to have a baby in an emergency situation and give them a ticket and force them off the PBR. Up to today, the public does not know the name of this officer, or whether there has been any investigation into this matter.

What had me really concerned, however, was the reported statement of the chairman of the board of the Airports Authority, who said he had “absolutely no jurisdiction on what Immigration or Customs should or should not do.” He added that the authority merely provides the facilities for immigration to carry out their work.

I would respectfully like to inform the chairman that the proper functioning of the airport is entirely within his jurisdiction. He is the head of the airport and it is his duty to ensure that all services are properly provided. So that if immigration is not functioning, he has to do whatever it takes to make it work, even if he has to go to the Prime Minister himself.

He cannot just sit back and state that the problem is not within his jurisdiction while his airport is in chaos.

The same reasoning applies to several other sections of society. For example, we have had reports of magistrates, on convicting someone for possession of a gun, asking in frustration where all these guns are coming from.

But not once have we seen a magistrate ask the convicted person where he got the gun or ask the police if the convicted person co-operated in identifying the supplier of the gun (maybe with an offer that the sentence to be passed would depend on the extent of co-operation).

And this is not outside the jurisdiction of the magistrate as he/ she has other duties outside the Summary Courts Act to preserve the general welfare of society.

LENNOX SANKERSINGH via email