Sever ties with the Privy Council

THE EDITOR: I feel constrained to refer to your Sunday’s Newsday of April 20, to the article “Man who killed three women luckiest man in TT”, written by Mr Francis Joseph.

The luckiest man is Bimal Roy Paria of Bangladesh Village, St Joseph who was charged with beating to death former common-law wife Asha Arjoon, mother Sita and sister Anna on July 24, 1998. According to the Privy Council of London, which comprised Lords Nicholls, Hutton, Hobhouse, Scott and Rodger, Paria will escape the hangman because the trial judge did not put his good character to the Jury. Like Mr Joseph, I am impelled to ask: what good character? That question is superfluous! Paria shall be sentenced for manslaughter by the Court of Appeal in TT.

What I am profoundly perturbed and deeply concerned about is why we in TT continue to have ties with the Privy Council of England on murder matters when England has abolished the death penalty? Premised on the recent judgments of the Privy Council, it is virtually transparent that as long as we retain the Privy Council, hanging people in TT will be impossible. In light of the above, I want to call upon the government and Opposition to urgently look into the establishment of a Caribbean Court of Appeal as our final Court of Appeal. Let us do like Guyana, and another one of our Caribbean island (neighbours), and divorce ourselves from the Privy Council before some people conceive the idea that they can go about killing people like chickens and they will escape the hangman's noose. I must commend Mr Francis Joseph for the article he wrote. It was he who provoked me to write this letter.

HARRY P T CHARLIE
Princes Town