Justice Minister: Parole legislation to be introduced

Min­is­ter of Jus­tice De­vesh Ma­haraj says leg­is­la­tion to in­tro­duce a pa­role sys­tem in Trinidad and To­ba­go will soon be laid in Par­lia­ment as part of a broad­er ef­fort to re­form the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem and re­duce de­lays.

Ma­haraj said a Pa­role Bill is among a suite of mea­sures be­ing pre­pared to im­prove ef­fi­cien­cy and ac­cess to jus­tice.

“There’s a pa­role act, pa­role bill, sor­ry, which we bring in­to Par­lia­ment short­ly to in­tro­duce pa­role to the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem,” he said.

He added that the leg­is­la­tion will come along­side amend­ments to the Pro­ba­tion Act, the in­tro­duc­tion of a Vic­tims’ Rights Bill, and pro­posed con­sti­tu­tion­al changes to strength­en the right to a tri­al with­in a rea­son­able time.

“In terms of there, we are bring­ing cer­tain amend­ments to the Con­sti­tu­tion for the right of rea­son­able tri­al, a quick tri­al, right of the ac­cused of tri­al with­in a rea­son­able time,” Ma­haraj said.

He said the leg­isla­tive push is be­ing sup­port­ed by op­er­a­tional changes aimed at re­duc­ing long-stand­ing back­logs in the sys­tem.

“We are work­ing very close­ly with the ju­di­cia­ry it­self to en­sure that we have func­tion­al court­rooms. We are work­ing very close­ly with the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre to clear back­logs to en­sure that crim­i­nal tri­als pro­ceed quick­ly,” he said.

Ma­haraj said ad­di­tion­al re­sources have al­ready been de­ployed to ad­dress de­lays in foren­sic test­ing.

“We have had a huge back­log in our au­top­sy re­ports, which we have added. We have added six per­sons to the DNA lab to clear that back­log as well,” he said.

He said the over­all goal is to make jus­tice more ef­fi­cient and ac­ces­si­ble.

“There’s a whole suite of leg­is­la­tion that we are bring­ing, and func­tion­al­ly on the ground, we are deal­ing with all the is­sues that have pre­vent­ed jus­tice from be­ing de­layed, mak­ing it ac­ces­si­ble and quick­er,” he said.

The move fol­lows ear­li­er ef­forts to in­tro­duce pa­role-type mech­a­nisms. In 2012, then jus­tice min­is­ter Her­bert Vol­ney called for a pa­role sys­tem man­aged by a Pa­role Board and an ear­ly re­lease pro­gramme for cer­tain cat­e­gories of of­fend­ers.

Dur­ing a 2011 par­lia­men­tary de­bate on elec­tron­ic mon­i­tor­ing, Vol­ney ar­gued that the ex­ist­ing par­don sys­tem was too rigid, forc­ing a choice be­tween full in­car­cer­a­tion and ab­solute free­dom. He pro­posed a con­di­tion­al frame­work that would al­low su­per­vised re­lease while main­tain­ing over­sight.