AG: Bail Bill shuts door on career criminals

Attorney General John Jeremie revealed the motivation behind the Bail Bill as he piloted it in the House of Representatives yesterday.

The Bill will deny bail to repeat offenders and kidnappers.

Jeremie served a warning to criminals — "We will hunt you, even when you stalk us. We will hold you, and we will not release you."

He said many law-abiding citizens had been made to pay money for the return of loved ones. He said in other cases, kidnappings have resulted in murder. "Where things go right, they still go wrong, because victims are scarred psychologically," he said.

Jeremie said the prevalence of violent crimes had far-reaching effects both within and outside the society.

Jeremie said Government has never accepted that the current levels of crime would be a permanent feature. , He stressed, however, that in order to ensure that the current wave was only a temporary thing, "hard decisions and strong measures" were needed, such as this bill. He said when historians look back, they would see this day as the beginning of the turnaround "in making Trinidad and Tobago the safe country that we all grew up in."

Jeremie stated that the role of Government was to ensure a proper balance between the interest of the individual and the collective interest of the State. He said individual rights must always take second place to the society’s right as a whole, since the rights of the many outweighed the rights of the single person.