Attorneys to cops: JPs have rights too

Attorneys-at-Law, Felix  Durity and Company, have called for the same privileges that are given to Court Magistrates to be given to their client, Justice of the Peace, Bissoon Birsingh In a letter addressed to the Attorney General, the Chief Magistrate and the Director of Public Prosecutions, the firm outlined that, on several visits to police stations to admit persons arrested on bail,  their client JP Birsingh, had to wait “inordinately long periods” before an arrested person was brought to him.

“In light of the foregoing we are of the firm opinion that Justices of the Peace are entitled by statutory command to be accorded the same privileges, powers, rights and jurisdiction when performing the judicial function of granting bail, as are accorded to magistrates in court,” said the law firm yesterday. They noted that, according to Section Six of the Summary Court Act, “Justices shall have and exercise concurrent jurisdiction with the magistrates to issue summonses, warrants and other process of court, to grant bail fixing the amount thereof, to take recognisances, and to bind over parties and witnesses, and to administer the oaths.”