Government, Opposition to discuss constitutional amendment

Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar is leading a government of Trinidad and Tobago team for discussions Thursday afternoon with the opposition on proposed amendments to the constitution with respect to the death penalty.

The meeting takes place at the Diplomatic Centre. Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley will head the opposition delegation to the talks.

The government of Trinidad and Tobago tabled legislation on January 14 to amend the constitution to remove obstacles to the death penalty and to allow for the creation of three categories of murder in the country.

The death penalty is the law in the country but the government has been unable to execute anyone because of limits imposed by the Privy Council in the Pratt and Morgan case several years ago.

That case prohibits capital punishment if there has been a delay in execution of five years or more.

Persad-Bissessar told legislators it is time to retaliate with full force against criminals. The “terrifying tsunami of crime” in Trinidad and Tobago has made a mockery of the state’s ability to guarantee citizens the constitutional right to security.

“This basic and fundamental right is under threat,” she told legislators, adding that she will not allow "a small handful of devious criminals (to) hold this nation to ransom while they savagely attack and brutalise our society.”

Persad-Bissessar noted with hundreds of millions of dollars invested in social and training programs to improve the quality of life of citizens over the years, there is little or no reason for a life of crime.

“We have tolerated it for too long and the change demanded by the population on May 24 calls for a radical and revolutionary visionary approach to our many inherited problems,” she said.

Rowley has said the opposition accepts the principle of the death penalty but he is not in a harry to support any measure until his party carefully examines the amendment.

"If we are going to be changing what we have on a matter that is as fundamental as this we can't bring it to the Parliament in such an overnight rush, like a thief in the night and having brought it we would require to consult before we take a position in the party," Rowley said in refusing the debate the measure earlier this month.

"The problem has not really been an absence of the law," Rowley told local media. "Changing it to a new law does not automatically bring about the kinds of results the Prime Minister talked about so we have to see what the changes are."