Trinidad: Electronic bracelets for person issued protection orders

 (Trinidad Guardian) Moves to in­crease the ef­fi­cien­cy of the pro­tec­tion or­der sys­tem are in the works.

Amend­ments are be­ing draft­ed to the Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence law to en­sure that cul­prits against whom pro­tec­tion or­ders are is­sued are fit­ted with elec­tron­ic mon­i­tor­ing bracelets which will alert the vic­tim who took out the or­der.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al Rawi spoke about the move in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day while re­ply­ing to Op­po­si­tion ques­tions. He was at the time com­ment­ing on the sta­tus of the procla­ma­tion of the bill to al­low the use of elec­tron­ic mon­i­tor­ing. He said noth­ing was done be­tween 2011 and 2015 al­though his ad­min­is­tra­tion had moved it for­ward, in­clud­ing with train­ing for im­ple­men­ta­tion of the sys­tem. He said re­draft­ed amend­ments to the bill will be laid in Par­lia­ment in a week.

On the use of the elec­tron­ic mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem in planned amend­ments to the Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Act, Al Rawi said this will ap­ply to pro­tec­tion or­ders is­sued in the Mag­is­trate’s Court and High Court. He said he hoped the Op­po­si­tion would sup­port the amend­ments.

Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan, re­ply­ing to an­oth­er Op­po­si­tion query on op­er­a­tions at the Ca­roni Li­cens­ing Of­fice, said in about three months the pub­lic will be able to pay for trans­ac­tions at cred­it card kiosks.

Com­ment­ing on re­ports of long lines at the of­fice he ad­mit­ted there had been chal­lenges with em­ploy­ees but said plans, in­clud­ing the in­tro­duc­tion of the kiosks, are be­ing im­ple­ment­ed to deal with the sit­u­a­tion.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter An­tho­ny Gar­cia told the Op­po­si­tion that giv­en the em­bry­on­ic stage of cannabis de­crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion there are no im­me­di­ate plans to in­tro­duce UWI cours­es on the med­i­c­i­nal use of cannabis.

Act­ing Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hind said Cumana beach in To­co, where two Cana­di­an res­i­dents re­cent­ly drowned, is not among beach­es where life­guards are sta­tioned. He list­ed beach­es around T&T where life­guards op­er­ate be­tween 10 am and 6 pm.