Plea Bill before committee

The bill is now being considered in committee stage and discussions will continue when the House sits again on April 28.

In committee, Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar had sought to get the Government to commit to a time-line for having the bill take effect, suggesting August or September.

However Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi said he must first meet the Law Association to discuss any training needed ahead of these changes to courtroom procedure. He said Government is very anxious to effect the bill.

“We’ll be judged by the people,” he said.

“We’ll do our best and move with alacrity.” While admitting that the bill is not a magic bullet for a criminal justice system that did not become broken overnight but a longer period, Al-Rawi outlined his architectural approach to bringing a remedy.

He said he began a case by case inspection of the prison system including noting what crime victims were exposed to, how fast inmate cases moved, and what were the solutions.

“The gap between crime and conviction is way too long,” he said.

Al-Rawi became emotional as he related a tale of a taxi driver who was waiting to testify against two bandits.

“The bandits broke into his house one night, put a gun to his head and blew his brains out, all over his eleven year old daughter.

“Because of the length of time taken for that robbery case to get to court, it soon became a murder case. I’m quite upset about what I’m saying.” He said while MPs verbally jostled each other in Parliament, citizens were watching them closely.

“When we as parents are mortified and afraid watching our children cross the road at night to go to the neighbour’s house, where are we as a society? “Our criminal justice matters are just not moving.” He said from 2012 to 2015, some 371,000 criminal cases were filed in the magistrates court and 20,872 in the High Court. He calculated that the latter figure meant each of ten High Court judges should dispose of 2,087 cases per year. He said that of 226 criminals matters filed at the High Court, only 111 cases are approved for trial, a 49 percent rate per year.

He added that out of 2,010 people who are on indictment before the High Court, only 118 are dealt with. Apparently referring to the High Court, he said the backlog was some 68,000 cases.