Manning had cautioned on hanging

By SEAN DOUGLAS Monday, January 21 2008

PRIME Minister Patrick Manning has promised new legislation to implement the death penalty, but in 1998 he called for laws to support the general right of citizens, including persons convicted of murder, to appeal to two international bodies — the United Nations Committee on Human Rights and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

As Opposition Leader in July 1998, while backing executions, he said murderers must first have the right of appeal, saying: “A man fighting for his life should have the remedy of going to the two international human rights bodies.” Manning told a PNM rally at Arouca in August 1998:

“The fundamental human rights of people must be preserved. While you are trying to hang people, don’t do it at the expense of the fundamental human rights enshrined in the Constitution of Trinidad and Tobago.”

On Monday September 21, 1998, during a House of Representatives’ debate on the now-lapsed Constitution (Amendment) Bill (Number 2) 1998 which effects the Privy Council’s “Pratt and Morgan” ruling to ban execution more than five years after sentencing, Manning had said citizens need protection from State abuses.

At that time he told the Lower House: “The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations Committee on Human Rights were set up to protect victims from state abuse . . . Therefore, it is not necessarily the criminals, it is not just persons who find themselves on the wrong side of the law, it is also honest and upright citizens whose only responsibility and desire is to go about their own business without interfering with the fundamental rights of others.

It is the PNM’s view that when one is dealing with abuses by a state, it is an unequal match and, therefore, there is an advantage.

“Some additional protection is necessary by way of international oversight by some body or bodies who are outside of the political arm of any particular state. It is most important...

“We are saying that the status of any decision or the result of the deliberations of those two bodies must be enshrined in the law of Trinidad and Tobago.

“We are not saying that those two bodies are superior courts of record in this country. We are not saying that at all. In no country is it that way. We are saying that those bodies have only a persuasive responsibility and jurisdiction in determining what happens here.”

Manning is ah two tongue ole nigga.

Now let us wait and hear what he'll say when the proposed legislation comes to Parliament.

The focker said the same thing about Caroni, oh, how so fockin many families will suffer and this and that and the first fockin thing he do as he became PM is to close down Caroni.

Yuh cyah truss dat nigga, or any as a matter of fact.