Trinidad Aims to Bypass Privy Council on Death Penalty

•  port of spain
• Friday, January 21, 2011
• Inter Press Service

The administration of Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar has the required parliamentary special majority to ensure passage of the new legislation. 'Mothers have lost their sons and daughters, children are left motherless and fatherless. Homes left without incomes, families destroyed and forced into poverty and worse,' she said, arguing that the war on crime cannot be won 'unless we use every weapon in our arsenal'.

According to government figures, 3,335 murders were committed here between 2002 and 2010. Currently, 42 people are on death row. However, there is little data to support the government's position. The Trinidad and Tobago Humanist Society (TTHS) notes that there is no country in the world where the death penalty has been proven to reduce crime.

'One notable comparison is between Canada, where the death penalty was abolished in 1976, and the U.S., where it was reinstated that same year after a ten-year moratorium. American homicide rates rose after the 1976 reinstatement, while Canadian homicide rates declined after its abolition,' the TTHS said.

While there is broad public support for the death penalty here, not everyone agrees. Social activist Verna St. Rose- Greaves, a strong anti-capital punishment advocate, told IPS there is need for 'ongoing, informed and sustained debate on this issue'.

'We need to talk about the plan, the pain, the anger and victim support,' she said. 'And unless we are prepared to sit down in calm and with respect and address those issues, we're heading for more trouble.' 'The death penalty is about taking away our humanity,' she said.

The government insists that the 'death penalty was and remains the law of the land' and that the proposed legislation 'does not introduce any new penalty that did not previously exist'. 'It simply seeks to plug some of the loopholes that have been exploited and manipulated by murderers who have been properly convicted and sentenced to death according to law,' the prime minister said.

Caribbean countries that are former British colonies have long complained that rulings by the London-based Privy Council, the final court for some of them, have made it much more difficult to carry out the death penalty.

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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