Panday: I’m yet to receive it

The much trumpeted bipartisan crime agreement appears to have reached its first hurdle. While the Government has claimed that it has delivered the package of anti-crime legislation to Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday, Panday has denied that he has received any such correspondence from the Government.

Panday yesterday said that he was yet to receive a copy of the anti-crime legislation which Prime Minister Patrick Manning had promised to deliver.

Manning had given the undertaking in his statement to Parliament on Wednesday, November 9, that the bills would be given to the Opposition within one week.

The Office of the Prime Minister, in a release issued yesterday, insisted that, "as promised, a package of draft anti-crime bills was delivered to the Leader of the Opposition, Honourable Basdeo Panday at his office in Port-of-Spain on the afternoon of November 25."

The release was responding to a statement from Member of Parliament for Siparia, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, in which she said that the UNC had not received the bills.

Panday supported this position yesterday, saying, "We haven’t gotten it yet. Maybe it got stuck in the mail." The anti-crime bills are the Police Service Bill, the Constitution Amendment bill, the Police Service Regulations, the Police Complaints Authority bill and the Bail Amendment bill.

According to Government sources, the bills were delivered to Panday’s office with a view to having the Opposition team scrutinise them and be in a position to meet with the Government team sometime after the return of Manning on Wednesday.

The legislative package attempts to give effect to what was agreed to, when the Government and Opposition sat down to hammer out a legislative solution to the crime situation.

Sources said under the Constitution Amendment bill, the Police Service Commission has jurisdiction only over the Police Commissioner and the Deputy Police Commissioners. All other police officers would fall under the ambit of the Police Commissioner, who under the legislation, is given full power to appoint, discipline, transfer other officers, according to the draft bill. (Under the current system, the Police Service Commission appoints everyone from recruits to Police Commissioner).

In terms of the appointment of the Police Commissioner and the Deputy Police Commissioners, the bill proposes that the President of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago make an Order which lists the qualifications that a Police Commissioner and the Deputy Police Commissioner should have. The Police Service Commission would then be required to find persons who have these qualifications, and then make the appointments.

The legislation proposes that the Prime Minister retains the veto power he currently has in the appointment of the Police Commissioner.

On the issue of the appointment of the Police Service Commissioners, the legislation recommends that the commissioners be appointed by the President of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago on the advice of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition.

If such advice is not forthcoming (ie if there is no agreement between them) the President makes an appointment after consultation with the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition.

In other words the President, in the absence of an agreement, would return to the original manner of appointing members on the Police Service Commission.