She made the pledge when she address a reception for delegates attending the closing of the International Press Institute (IPI) World congress in Port of Spain.
She noted that the decision followed a meeting between Attorney General Anand Ramlogan and a delegation from the IPI.
"The responsibility falls to us as the Government to ensure that even as we preside over the passionate defense of all aspects of freedom, we must ensure that the exercise of one’s freedom at no time represents an impingement of another’s freedom," she said.
Persad-Bissessar also raised some fundamental issues about the role of media. "If I asked you to comment on a story which in fact had no basis of truth and you denied its very existence which I in turn as a journalist then carried as your rebuttal, taking it into the public domain, would that be fair and just?" she asked.
"We in the Government take responsibility for all in our nation, and each citizen takes responsibility for himself. If anyone slips, trips or falters, the media is there to ensure that nothing is missed," the PM said.
And she had some questions too. "Who reports on the media? Who regulates the media? How can the media be regulated and held to standards in a manner that is transparent and does not impinge on its ability to operate freely?
"How can the media also decide on parameters within which journalists must operate so that Journalistic integrity, as an ideal, becomes a continuous pursuit, rather than at times, simply a shield?
"Integrity and character are not automatic endowments by virtue of the professions we choose. We, the people who populate the professions, are the ones entrusted with the responsibility to either maintain or destroy the integrity and character of our professions.
"Integrity and character therefore can only be our shields when we have earned them, through trust, a continuous demonstration of us aspiring to those ideals, and evidence that we have upheld the noblest of ideals.
"My firm view is that such self-regulation is essential and, as with everything, must subject itself to growing demands of the millions of people driving the evolving global environment.
"I would therefore place this responsibility on all stakeholders to consider this next step in consolidating democracy, by ensuring that everyone is subjected to both the defence and the demands of true freedom...
"As leaders of Governments embracing the democratic model, we must uphold the tenets of the 1991 Declaration of Windhoek and the earlier United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, which states in Article 19, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”.
"Let me say very plainly to all of you this evening - my firm conviction is to do otherwise, would be to threaten the very democracy and the pillars of freedom upon which the free world stands.
"Let me also add that this means that freedom and democracy must be something that we all protect, with no one having any greater right over its protection than any other."
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