“You cannot just string people up and hang them.”
The growing public outcry for hangings to resume come as the murder rate soared to 53 for the year to date over the weekend.
Al-Rawi said as AG he supported the death penalty as it was the law, but noted there was a convoluted court process which often times stymied the death penalty from being carried out.
“The death penalty has not been carried out for many years because of the operation of delays. It is important to remember that the system included for the conviction process...after one is convicted at the Assizes, it then goes through a three-stage process of appeal,” Al-Rawi said, adding that this included the Appeal Court, Privy Council and then by way of petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
“The law right now is opened to be carried out against people only after the appellate process is compete. The serious delays we have as a country are faced really in the Privy Council and at the Inter-American Court.”
He said his office is currently tracking every case in the Court of Appeal and Privy Council and in particular where the State has involvement.
Regarding the Inter-American Court, Al-Rawi said the delays were very worrying, citing that the completion of a petition, including the publication of the report of recommendation in that court, took some 11 years.
“So it seems almost that T&T’s compliance with the rules of participation in that court are bound to make applications fail. That is a matter for country to decide on participation in the international environment,” he said.
“But the Privy Council statistics are no better and what I noticed, particularly under the last government’s management, the death penalty was not carried out at all and no statement of intent to carry it out was ever given. There was nothing in place when I came in as AG to track the system to make sure the State was ready on all occasions.”
He said measures like the Criminal Proceedings rule, which were expected to come on stream in April, was part of the measures expected to speed up the processes. But the AG said it was a difficult to give a time frame by which hangings could resume.
“Until the final appellate process in those three stages is over you can’t hang anyone. You have the right to appeal,” Al-Rawi said, as he added that the introduction of public defenders would also aim to speed up the process.
There are currently 33 people on death row, out of which 11 have had their sentences committed to life imprisonment due to the Pratt and Morgan ruling, which speaks to the fact that it would be cruel and inhumane punishment to carry out the death penalty after a prolonged period of delay, in most cases five years.
Bring on death penalty—cops
Police Service Social and Welfare Association president, Insp Michael Seales, has joined the public cry for the death penalty to be immediately resumed.
He said yesterday that it was totally unacceptable that the murder rate for this month, 53 up to last evening, was the highest in the last four years.
He added that it was difficult to understand why the runaway crime rate appeared so difficult to arrest.
“It means that people are not afraid of the Police Service at all and when you have murders occurring on the door step of the station, you have to understand that we are in a crisis and if we do not recognise we are in a crisis, anarchy is going to come,” Seales said, warning that the situation would only become worse for law enforcement.
Regarding the recent press conference held by the AG, National Security Minister Edmund Dillon and acting Police Commissioner Stephen Williams, which sought to allay the fears of citizens, Seales said this would not work as “robber talk” was not the answer.
“We need direct interaction to ensure there was some sense of tranquillity in this country. It also shows that our criminal justice system is not responding in the way it should be responding,” Seales said.
