Victims’ Rights Bill promises major shift in criminal justice system

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Gov­ern­ment’s Vic­tims’ Rights Bill 2026, which pro­tects vic­tims in a va­ri­ety of ground­break­ing new ways, will call for a sea of change in the mind­set of in­ves­ti­ga­to­ry agen­cies like the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice and pros­e­cut­ing agen­cies to en­sure vic­tims’ rights are up­held.

“We in­tend to have aware­ness pro­grammes with all agen­cies in­volved. We’re go­ing to bring them in a room, set out a manda­to­ry code that must be fol­lowed flow­ing from this bill when passed and let them know this is the new or­der - vic­tims have suf­fered too long!” said Jus­tice Min­is­ter De­vish Ma­haraj in pi­lot­ing the bill in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day.

The bill pro­vides for the rights and en­ti­tle­ments of the vic­tims of crime. Its 29 claus­es will ad­dress stages in which vic­tims have his­tor­i­cal­ly been failed by the sys­tem.

Ma­haraj said the bill rep­re­sents a par­a­digm shift in T&T’s crim­i­nal jus­tice his­to­ry and is the first of its kind in the Caribbean.

“Peo­ple need to know that they mat­ter and that the so­ci­ety they live in sees them, hears them and will stand with them. For too long, the vic­tims of crime in T&T have been made to feel that they don’t mat­ter to the le­gal sys­tem; that they’re in­stru­ments of pros­e­cu­tion, not par­tic­i­pants in jus­tice. That their pain is pro­ce­du­ral­ly in­con­ve­nient,” Ma­haraj added.

The bill es­tab­lish­es prin­ci­ples for the treat­ment of vic­tims, recog­nis­es the im­pact of crime on vic­tims, af­firms the rights of vic­tims to be treat­ed with re­spect, ac­knowl­edges the vic­tim’s role as a par­tic­i­pant in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem and seeks to re­duce sec­ondary vic­tim­i­sa­tion.

Ma­haraj said, “For far too long, vic­tims of crime have ex­pe­ri­enced any­thing but jus­tice. They’ve ex­pe­ri­enced si­lence, ex­clu­sion and ‘sec­ondary vic­tim­i­sa­tion’ - de­lays, poor com­mu­ni­ca­tion and lack of co­he­sive sup­port... While the le­gal frame­work was de­signed pri­mar­i­ly to pro­tect the rights of the ac­cused and due process, in safe­guard­ing that, we over­looked those who did noth­ing wrong, who bore the phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al and fi­nan­cial scars of wrong­do­ing and were rel­e­gat­ed to the pe­riph­ery of the process that was sup­posed to serve them.”

Cit­ing record mur­ders in 2024, plus oth­er crimes - be­tween 2020 and 2023 alone, over 42,000 se­ri­ous crimes were re­port­ed to po­lice - Ma­haraj said each num­ber is a name and per­son whose life was shat­tered.

He said women and chil­dren, par­tic­u­lar­ly in con­texts of do­mes­tic and sex­u­al vi­o­lence, con­tin­ue bear­ing a dis­pro­por­tion­ate bur­den of harm.

“Thou­sands of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence in­ci­dents are re­port­ed an­nu­al­ly, yet on­ly a frac­tion re­sult in charges or pros­e­cu­tions. This gap be­tween re­port­ing and en­force­ment re­flects not on­ly ev­i­den­tial chal­lenges, but sys­temic short­com­ings in how vic­tims are sup­port­ed through the process.”

Ma­haraj cit­ed the Tot Lamp­kin case, where a moth­er suc­cess­ful­ly sued the State af­ter her daugh­ter was re­peat­ed­ly threat­ened, as­sault­ed and mur­dered de­spite mul­ti­ple re­ports to po­lice and pleas for pro­tec­tion. He said the vic­tim made four re­ports to po­lice sta­tions from 2013 to 2017 and had three ap­pli­ca­tions to the ju­di­cia­ry’s do­mes­tic vi­o­lence court. He not­ed a mag­is­trate ques­tioned her for seek­ing a pro­tec­tion or­der and she was turned down.

“This is a clas­sic case of a vic­tim who, maybe if we had a Vic­tims’ Rights Act, the in­ves­ti­gat­ing au­thor­i­ties may have found it nec­es­sary to probe the mat­ter more dili­gent­ly, in­form her of the mat­ter’s progress and take steps to pros­e­cute the of­fend­er. Just maybe, a life might have been saved,” Ma­haraj said.

Ma­haraj said the bill will as­sist in­sti­tu­tions deal­ing with wit­ness­es, in­clud­ing the TTPS Vic­tim and Wit­ness Sup­port Unit. He not­ed that these in­sti­tu­tions, how­ev­er, op­er­ate in si­los, lack­ing an over­ar­ch­ing le­gal oblig­a­tion to co­or­di­nate ef­forts and an en­force­able stan­dard of con­duct.

Ma­haraj said re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for a Vic­tims of Crime Char­ter was trans­ferred to the then Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty in 2015, and noth­ing was done there­after. Now, un­der UNC’s Jus­tice Min­istry, Ma­haraj said, “This bill en­sures that vic­tims are no longer in­vis­i­ble with­in our laws.”

Vic­tims’ Rights Bill pro­vi­sions

• ↓Vic­tims are pro­tect­ed from the mo­ment a re­port is made.

• ↓Po­lice are re­quired to treat vic­tims with cour­tesy and com­pas­sion.

• ↓Vic­tims are en­ti­tled to up­dates on in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

• ↓Agen­cies must pro­vide in­for­ma­tion on coun­selling and sup­port ser­vices.

• ↓Prop­er­ty tak­en dur­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions must be safe­guard­ed and re­turned.

• ↓Vic­tims must be in­formed about charges and pros­e­cu­tion de­ci­sions.

• ↓Fam­i­lies and wit­ness­es in­clud­ed in ex­pand­ed de­f­i­n­i­tion of “vic­tim”.

• ↓Rights ap­ply even if no sus­pect is iden­ti­fied or con­vict­ed.

• ↓Agen­cies re­quired to co­or­di­nate vic­tim sup­port ef­forts.

• ↓Bill aims to re­duce “sec­ondary vic­tim­i­sa­tion”.