Trinidad PM says Judiciary has sympathy for criminals

(Trinidad Guardian) With just three days to go be­fore a spe­cial sit­ting of Par­lia­ment to de­bate the Bail Amend­ment bill, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is lev­el­ling crit­i­cism in the di­rec­tion of the Ju­di­cia­ry and the op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress.

Speak­ing at the in­stal­la­tion of a new Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Diego Mar­tin West Con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive Sun­day, Row­ley said the de­ci­sion to con­vene the spe­cial sit­ting was based on a call from the po­lice, who said that bail for gun of­fences was too read­i­ly avail­able. How­ev­er, he said the le­gal sys­tem is not help­ing in this re­gard.

 
“And if I can be crit­i­cal of the Ju­di­cia­ry be­cause they are al­ways crit­i­cal of us in the Ex­ec­u­tive, some­times you get the im­pres­sion that mem­bers of the ju­di­cia­ry don’t know what is go­ing on in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“Be­cause peo­ple ap­pear be­fore them and all of a sud­den they be­come the bleed­ing heart for the crim­i­nals who will kill you with­out bat­ting an eye­lid.”

He said some­thing needs to be done now be­cause firearms are killing peo­ple in this coun­try like flies.

Dr Row­ley al­so chas­tised the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress who he said us­es crime to its po­lit­i­cal ad­van­tage. (CS)