Govt amends Kidnapping Bill and gets Parliament approval

Government was forced to pull out all those clauses from the Kidnapping bill which required a special majority, after it became clear that it was not going to get the support of the Opposition UNC.

“We are passing it without you,” Health minister Colm Imbert stated, as he made the announcement that government was removing Clauses 2, 11, 15 and 17.  He dramatically slammed his notes onto the table and took his seat. The Opposition sat unmoved, but there was loud desk-thumping on the government benches. Among the clauses which the PNM had to remove were Clause 11, which would allow the assets accruing to anyone involved in kidnapping to be liable to confiscation or forfeiture and Clause 17, which which would have made kidnapping a non-bailable offence. And as the debate on the bill got on the way, two speakers - Gillian Lucky and Ganga Singh - maintained that the Bill would not get Opposition support.

However the government, also had to amend clause 6 in response to concerns expressed by local attorneys and the Opposition. They argued that the clause as written would expose any person — including relatives of the kidnap victim and others operating on behalf of the victim, to a 25 year sentence. Imbert said government, “for the avoidance of doubt and to remove all ambiguity”, prepared an amendment specifying that this clause did not apply to persons who negotiated or assisted in negotiating on behalf of the kidnapped person. Imbert said that while government accepted the arguments of Gillian Lucky on Clause 6, it did not accept the Oppositions’ other arguments.

Imbert lambasted the UNC for not caring about kidnap victims and for doing absolutely nothing during their term of office during which the problem of kidnapping escalated considerably. He quoted police statistics to show that in 1995 there were 56 reported cases of kidnapping. In 1996-81; 1997-80; 1998-100; 1999-136; 2000-156; 2001-135; 2002-227. “We have come from a situation where kidnapping moved from 56 in the period of the PNM to a three-fold increase during the UNC years.