AG: Criminal Procedure Bill will improve justice system

The Attorney General made the comments while winding up debate on the legislation in the House on Thursday night. He said that 95 per cent of prosecutions are dealt with by the police in the magistrate’s courts. He said the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service has a sanctioned strength of 7,884 officers but as of March 2017 there were 5,000 persons in the service.

However, he said that at February this year there were 53 court prosecutors in the service and only eight lawyers among them while there were 24 lawyers in the service.

He said the Government has started a Manpower Audit in the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service to determine the efficiency of the service in terms of prosecutions.

He said that unless the Government knew this it was “spinning top in mud.” Al Rawi said that within a six-year period the Government had spent $15.1 billion on the police and had spent an additional $27 billion in dealing with national security and crime and questioned what progress had been made for the money. He said that too many people hide in “dark spaces” because they are not prepared to give a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay and the Government was not satisfied with that. He said with the advent of the Criminal Proceeding Rules, the Government conducted a Prosecutorial Audit in the police service by creating prosecutorial centres and case management centres in the Police Service.

He said the Government had also drafted file management manuals for investigators and prosecutors, given case management in the service management committee reports and brought the Compass Tracking Case System up to date.

He added that in order to ensure the integrity of cautionary statements to be used in evidence, the Government had bought video recording suites which have been installed and are in operation. He said this was to prevent witness statements being given before a Justice of the Peace where one is uncertain whether the witness was beaten or threatened to give the statement. He said after the Government bought the video recording suites, it found another 14 video suites which had been bought but never put into use. He said the Government is now insisting that every statement that is given will be recorded on video because the Government must balance the rights of the individual against the right of the State to protect itself.

He said the State had also brought in the DNA regulator to assist with dealing with firearms, narcotics and thousands of sexual offences and is speeding up the procurement of the entity to provide the services to the DNA bank and DNA testing because the Government wants this completed by September and has determined that it will take just six weeks to get DNA samples from the entire prison population.

He said the Government is also taking steps to manage the public prosecution service to manage cases so that they are ready to begin when court starts. He said that policemen arrive at court with long lists of cases to be adjourned because the system is not being managed at present. He said this has been one of the reasons why cases do not get started.

He said the Government has also instituted a Public Defender’s System for the country after a visit he made to the U.K during which he met with the U.K’s Director of Public Prosecutions and the head of the Public Defender’s Service in the UK.

He said he had arranged for assistance in prosecutions and Public Defender oversight from the UK.

He said the Government is going to upgrade the Legal Aid Authority into a Public Defender’s System so that when an accused person’s attorney of choice is not available, the State will provide a competent attorney.