Government intends to amend the proclamation of the Administration of Justice (Indictable Offences) Act on August 2 and implement only a pilot project. It will be limited to St George West. Dana Seetahal, SC, who spoke about the consequences of the move yesterday, said she had heard about government’s intention from good sources. But in an interview yesterday at her El Dorado law chambers, St Vincent Street, Port-of-Spain, Seetahal described the decision as “dangerous.”
She added: “You can have a pilot project if, for instance, you are planning to have various projects across the country of anything that does not need specific legislation. “But in terms of this act, it is supposed to come into force on August 2, according to the proclamation that was already issued. Until that proclamation is already rescinded, that’s how it is going to happen now and nobody has shown me any replacement proclamation.”
Seetahal said if by a pilot project it was meant that the new law was to be proclaimed to apply to only one area of the country, there would then be “serious concerns as to the legality.” She explained: “I have never heard of anything, other than in a state of emergency, where you declare an emergency to exist in one locality, which is permissible. “I don’t know anywhere that we could say an act which is meant to have general application could now be, at the desire of the government, restricted in its application for a short period.”
Since the act was of general application, she said, it was supposed to apply throughout the entire country. Seetahal added: “This is one country and remains one country. There is nothing in here in the act which says ‘St George West.’ If it is going to be a pilot project and not throughout the whole country, then it is dangerous. “The Parliament allowed the President the power to proclaim the act. So it has nothing to do with anything saying the act should come into effect in certain localities as the President decides.
“The Statutes Act, which deals with how statutes are brought into effect, does not give any power in any proclamation to decide that the act only applies to one area.” Saying that St George West was a magisterial district, Seetahal said people outside that area who wanted to have their matters dealt with speedily might be deprived of that. “Is it then because of geographical location of the crime, that if you have committed a crime in Port-of-Spain, you would get the benefit of getting it through the system quickly?
“It is untidy, it is unseemly and it is contrary to what was intended when the act was passed,” Seetahal said. President of the Criminal Bar Association Pamela Elder, SC, also raised concerns about the proposal. Elder, in an interview at her chambers on Alfredo Street, Woodbrook, made it clear the association was not told that a pilot project would be implemented but said that was the word among the legal fraternity.
“I have been hearing a lot of talk. If there is a plan to have a pilot project, I would really like to know the justification,” Elder said. Echoing Seetahal’s comment that the act was one of general application, Elder also questioned the scope of the project, whether there would be an offence limitation, if so to what offences, and the process by which that came about. She said: “We have to be careful people don’t cry discriminatory treatment, that an offender in one area is being treated differently from an offender in another area.
“We have to understand that the whole object of this legislation is to expedite the criminal justice system, to expedite criminal trials. If we have a ladder of crimes, is the pilot project going to deal with the most serious of offences, mainly the murders?” Elder questioned. Saying she had “serious concerns” about a pilot project being brought about by proclamation, Elder added that was an issue which called for deep consideration.
The act replaced the Indictable Offences (Preliminary Inquiry) Act, and provides for a new system of paper committals instead of preliminary inquiries in the magistrates courts.