Trinidad Government Urged To State Position On Death Penalty
 

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – A prominent attorney has called on the Trinidad and Tobago Government to state categorically its position on the death penalty after a High Court judge last week ordered that the death sentence of 52 convicted murderers should be commuted to life imprisonment.

Senior Counsel Dana Seetahal, who is also an independent Senator here, said that the ruling would provide “more fodder to the cynics and critics, who say that no murderer can or will be executed in Trinidad and Tobago”.

Attorney General Brigette Annisette-George said recently that the Government intends to uphold the law of the land including carrying out the death penatlty.

Last weekend, Justice Nolan Bereaux ruled that the group of 49 men and three women be removed immediately from Death Row and instead spend the rest of their lives in jail.

His ruling followed a constitutional motion filed by the convicted murderers more than three years ago challenging their death sentences. The motion covered only those persons convicted before July 7, 2004, when the London-based Privy Council, the country’s highest court, ruled that the sentences of everyone on Death Row at that time be commuted to life imprisonment.

In an immediate response to the ruling, human rights lawyer and former Attorney General Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj said blame should be placed squarely on the Patrick Manning Government.“They should have reviewed the death sentence, put back laws to implement the death penalty and then follow principles of law,” said Maharaj, who served as attorney general when the last person was executed here in 1999.

Maharaj said that the judge had “no other alternative under existing laws”.

Seetahal, a former Magistrate, said Maharaj may have put his finger squarely “on what must be the concern of the Government on the release from death row of the majority of convicted murderers in the country, at a time when the murder rate is at an all-time high”.

She noted with the number of murders likely to pass 400 this year, “one wonders how is it that the State has delayed so long in actually commuting the sentences of these convicts.

“It was since 2004 that the Privy Council, which still remains our highest court, had recommended that virtually all the sentences of death row prisoners at that time be commuted.

“It seems to me that the State should have done this since 2004 rather than be forced to concede in a court of law to what was evident four years ago. It may be that the authorities did not want a message being sent that convicted murderers would not pay the price of their crime.

“If this was the reason, it made no sense, because there was no move to execute any of them in the last four years. Further, how does it look now at the time when the escalation of violent crime is at its worst for the State to be ordered to take these prisoners off death row?

“Government needs to make up its mind what it intends in relation to the death penalty and whatever it is,” she added.

Another prominent lawyer, Israel Khan said the society had to be blamed for the situation now confronting the country.

“Society has failed, it is not the Government of the day,” he said, reiterating an earlier call for murders to be categorised in this country.

“Legally, you can’t fault the ruling. I am of the view, thinking about it, is that murder at this point in time should be classified in three degrees. First, second and third and the death penalty retained only for first degree murder until our society has developed to such a state that one day we would be able to abolish the death penalty,” he said in a radio interview last week Monday.

“Without the classification in reality, the death of the death penalty already exists,” he added.

Meanwhile, President of Crime Watch, Ian Alleyne, said while he understood the court’s ruling, he was disappointed at the fact that the convicted killers had escaped punishment.

“Justice Bereaux had no alternative but to make this ruling as a result of the decision of Pratt and Morgan, the Privy Council and the local Court of Appeal, but it is clearly a sad day for the victims and families who were affected by the actions of this callous and heartless group of 52 individuals,” Alleyne said.

“These people should not be spared...They broke the law, they murdered and they should face the ultimate penalty for murder, which is death by hanging.”

Alleyne said Government had failed to review the death penalty legislation and related laws and so criminals had no fear of penalty for the crimes they commit.

“Criminals will continue to terrorise, kill, murder and rape our innocent law-abiding citizens,” Alleyne said, calling on the government to implement the necessary legislation and deal harshly with criminals.

 

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