作者： admin

Following the ceremonial opening of the 2026-2027 judicial law term on the steps of Port of Spain’s Hall of Justice, Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar shared new updates on warming bilateral ties with neighboring Venezuela in an address to reporters Tuesday.

Persad-Bissessar opened up about ongoing behind-the-scenes planning for a potential bilateral meeting between herself and Venezuelan Interim President Delcy Rodríguez on the sidelines of the upcoming United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, currently scheduled for late September. The Prime Minister also publicly shared warm personal feelings toward Rodríguez, expressing clear enthusiasm for the prospective encounter.

“I love her. I look forward to meeting her,” Persad-Bissessar told reporters, noting that cabinet minister Sean Sobers is currently coordinating logistics for the meeting, which is being targeted for September 25. When asked about her willingness to hold the summit, she emphasized that her priority will always be advancing the interests of Trinidad and Tobago’s citizens: “I will meet with anyone who wishes to meet me for the benefit of the people of Trinidad and Tobago. I will do whatever I have to do always.” She added that if the logistics cannot be finalized in time, the public will be updated promptly on the change of plans.

The comments come amid a fresh push to reactivate diplomatic cooperation between the two neighboring Caribbean and South American nations after years of stalled relations. Earlier this month, on September 3, Trinidad and Tobago’s Minister of Foreign and Caricom Affairs Sean Sobers completed a working visit to Caracas, where he held talks with top Venezuelan government officials including Foreign Minister Felix Plasencia. After the trip, Sobers announced that the two sides had reached an agreement to form a bilateral joint commission, designed to break through years of diplomatic and technical stagnation and move forward collaboration on cross-cutting issues that impact both nations. The technical working group formed under the commission will help both governments identify shared priority areas and deliver tangible outcomes for their populations. Persad-Bissessar publicly backed the trip, confirming it had been a success.

Addressing past tensions, the Prime Minister pushed back on discussions about her being labeled persona non grata under the previous Nicolás Maduro regime, instead centering the deep, longstanding ties that bind the two countries and their people. She highlighted her own personal familial connections to Venezuela, noting “my mother-in-law is Venezuelan. My two grand-nephews are Venezuelan. Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela, we have very, very close ties. We are family.”

Beyond diplomatic engagement, Persad-Bissessar delivered a clear, optimistic update on the long-discussed plan to import natural gas from Venezuela, saying she is fully confident cross-border gas supplies will reach Trinidad and Tobago within the next 12 months. She cited the countries’ extreme geographic proximity – just seven miles separate the two nations – and pre-existing agreements with major international energy firms as evidence the project will come to fruition. “I have absolutely no doubt that gas from Venezuela will come to Trinidad and Tobago. It is the only funnel, the only place it can pass. We are seven miles away, and it will come,” she said. The Prime Minister added that her administration has already finalized cooperation agreements with energy giant bp, and is working to conclude similar deals with Shell, XRG and other major energy players.

Securing additional Venezuelan natural gas imports is considered a critical strategic priority for Trinidad and Tobago’s energy sector, as the country looks to boost incoming supply to support its existing downstream petrochemical and liquefied natural gas industries, which form a core pillar of the national economy. Persad-Bissessar concluded by reaffirming that all bilateral efforts with Venezuela will advance the shared interests of both nations, saying “whatever has to be done, we will do in the best interest of Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela” and that the public can “expect the best” as relations continue to deepen.

In his inaugural address marking the opening of the 2026-2027 judicial law term at Port of Spain’s Hall of Justice Convocation Hall, newly appointed Chief Justice Ronnie Boodoosingh has announced a comprehensive set of systemic reforms aimed at dismantling the long-standing criminal case backlog that has plagued the country’s judiciary and expanding overall court capacity.

Boodoosingh, who assumed the top judicial role in October 2025, used his first public opening address to lay out the findings of a months-long institutional assessment he conducted after taking office, which uncovered systemic failures across infrastructure, staffing, and case management that have eroded public access to timely justice.

Physical court infrastructure emerged as a top critical concern: the San Fernando Supreme Court Building has remained fully shuttered since the COVID-19 pandemic, stripping the judicial system of 16 functional courtrooms and dedicated staff housing. Meanwhile, the main Hall of Justice and Tobago’s Hall of Justice operate far below their intended capacity, and nearly every regional Magistrates’ Court building across the country is in urgent need of maintenance, major renovations, or structural repairs.

Unlike most other public sector institutions and school systems that returned to full in-person operations after pandemic restrictions lifted, the judiciary has remained almost entirely virtual, Boodoosingh noted. This shift has left many members of the public without consistent in-person access to court staff and critical services, deepening public frustration with the judicial process.

The most pressing challenge identified by the assessment is the growing backlog of pending cases, particularly in the Criminal Court and Family Court divisions. Even after post-pandemic adjustments to preliminary inquiry protocols and traffic case processing, the backlog in Magistrates’ Courts has continued to climb at an alarming rate. Boodoosingh emphasized that reform efforts must center on the core needs of the public, who seek a straightforward, expedited process regardless of whether their case involves a traffic violation, family dispute, criminal charge, or civil claim.

“While the judiciary does not intentionally create delays or place unnecessary obstacles in the path of people seeking justice, resource constraints have undeniably limited our ability to deliver timely outcomes,” Boodoosingh acknowledged. “But that is not an excuse for failing to take every reasonable action to build a more effective justice system. When our systems are not working as well as they should, our job is to fix them.”

To anchor accountability, Boodoosingh is moving to enforce the existing six-month target for most judicial judgments — a standard first established decades ago and reaffirmed by former Chief Justice Ivor Archie in 2025. All judicial officers are now required to submit monthly reports to the Chief Justice’s office detailing sitting hours, completed cases, and pending judgments, creating transparent data to track institutional performance.

A new, cross-stakeholder Criminal Justice Board has already been convened, holding monthly meetings since April 2026 to diagnose bottlenecks and coordinate targeted solutions. A focused backlog clearance initiative is prioritizing the oldest cases in the system for accelerated processing or dismissal. Boodoosingh noted that some cases have lingered in the system for decades, and many are effectively “dead cases” with no path to a trial. The administration aims to resolve and remove all of these legacy cases from the system by the end of the current 2026-2027 law term.

One of the most impactful immediate changes is a near doubling of available criminal jury court space: 15 dedicated Criminal Jury High Court rooms have been operational since the start of September 2026, up from just eight available under the previous system. The judiciary has also scrapped its outdated docket assignment system, instead assigning individual judges to permanent courtrooms with full responsibility for managing and trying their assigned caseloads.

Top judicial officials have already secured commitments from key partners to support the expanded court capacity: Director of Public Prosecutions Roger Gaspard, SC, has pledged to continuously assign prosecutors to all 15 new courtrooms, and the judiciary is collaborating with the Public Defender’s Department to ensure consistent defense counsel coverage for each court. Boodoosingh has publicly backed the Public Defender’s Department’s call for additional staffing to meet this expanded demand, noting that the Judicial and Legal Service Commission is currently working with the DPP’s office to fill long-standing vacant positions across the legal system.

The reforms also include plans to extend sitting hours and cut down on avoidable downtime in the criminal justice system, a change Boodoosingh said is critical to moving cases through the pipeline faster.

In a major pivot away from the pandemic-era virtual model, Boodoosingh announced a gradual phased plan to restore full in-person hearings at all Magistrates’ Courts nationwide by the end of 2027. Official data makes clear that virtual hearings have drastically underperformed in-person proceedings when it comes to case completion rates, he said.

Between 2006 and 2016, when in-person operations were standard, annual case completion rates ranged from 65% to 120% of new annual filings. That rate dropped to just 44% in the most recent completed judicial year. While the number of completed cases has ticked up slightly from 10,746 in 2023/2024 to 15,994 in 2025/2026, that number remains a small fraction of pre-pandemic completion volumes: 115,491 cases were disposed of in 2016/2017, and 82,841 in 2017/2018. A comparative analysis found that virtual hearings dispose of less than 20% of the number of cases completed through in-person proceedings.

“Virtual hearings offer convenience for many stakeholders, including lawyers, magistrates, and law enforcement officers,” Boodoosingh said. “But for the Magistrates’ Court system, they have not delivered the same effectiveness as in-person hearings when it comes to completing cases in a timely manner. That is a gap we must address.”

At the ceremonial opening of the 2026-2027 judicial law term held in Port of Spain, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has publicly reaffirmed her administration’s unwavering commitment to backing the Judiciary in its mission to deliver faster, more equitable access to justice for all Trinidad and Tobago citizens.

Taking the stage alongside Chief Justice Ronnie Boodoosingh and Attorney General John Jeremie at the Hall of Justice event, Persad-Bissessar said she had carefully reviewed the Chief Justice’s vision for judicial administration, and emphasized that accessible, fair justice is a non-negotiable right for ordinary people. “Justice must never be distant from the people. It must never be beyond the reach of the ordinary citizen. It must be accessible, efficient and fair, and our citizens must have confidence that the institutions established to protect their rights will work for them,” she stated.

Persad-Bissessar took office in April 2025, and immediately launched a sweeping overhaul of what her administration identified as stagnant, outdated public systems that failed to meet citizens’ expectations. Her government moved quickly to collaborate with cross-sector justice stakeholders to map bottlenecks to efficiency, then rolled out an aggressive modernization agenda covering both legal affairs and civil and criminal justice frameworks. Just over a year into the program, she says tangible, meaningful change is already underway.

One of the flagship achievements highlighted by the Prime Minister is newly enacted legislation to digitize Trinidad and Tobago’s entire body of national laws, which will eventually give citizens free centralized access to all legal statutes through a single public online portal. Far from just a technological upgrade, Persad-Bissessar framed the reform as a critical step toward democratizing access to the law. “This is more than technological progress. It is the democratization of the law,” she said, adding that expanded public access will narrow the gap between communities and the judicial system, while strengthening public trust in the rule of law.

Another key legislative win is the 2026 Civil Division Act, which answers decades of requests from the Judiciary for a formal legal framework to restructure civil justice through a standalone, specialized division. Persad-Bissessar explained the act addresses longstanding systemic gaps including understaffing and administrative disorganization, cuts down on crippling case delays and backlogs, creates targeted specialized subdivisions, and boosts overall operational efficiency.

Turning to criminal justice reforms, the Prime Minister pointed to the 2026 Bail (Amendment) Act, which introduced a new formal process of Bail Source Hearings. This new regulation gives courts the power to verify that cash or real property used to secure bail comes from legitimate, legal sources. “The justice system must never become an avenue through which the proceeds of criminal activity can be legitimised,” she noted, adding that enhanced transparency and judicial oversight of bail will strengthen national efforts to combat organized crime, money laundering, and other high-level offenses.

Her administration also updated the decades-old Probation of Offenders Act, first written in 1947, to expand judicial access to split sentencing. Under the new framework, sentences can combine terms of incarceration with supervised community probation, including provisions for electronic monitoring, curfews, mandatory community service, and vocational training. Persad-Bissessar said the model balances accountability for criminal acts with a focus on rehabilitation and successful reintegration. “Justice must protect society and punish wrongdoing, but a modern justice system must also recognise that where rehabilitation is possible, people should have a meaningful opportunity to rebuild their lives and become productive members of society,” she said.

Beyond legislative changes, the Prime Minister confirmed the government has allocated full funding to support the Judiciary’s initiative to reopen shuttered magistrates’ courts across the country, a move designed to eliminate geographic barriers to justice. “A citizen in Mayaro deserves the same access to justice and essential court services as a citizen in Port of Spain, San Fernando, Tobago, or anywhere else in our Republic,” she said. She highlighted that prior to the reform, residents of rural areas like Mayaro faced unnecessary burdens: for example, those requiring probation officer services were forced to travel long distances to San Fernando, after local probation staff lost dedicated workspace in regional magistrates’ courts. With court reopenings, probation officers will once again be based in local courthouses across all jurisdictions. “That is what meaningful reform is about—not simply changing laws on paper, but improving the everyday experience of citizens who depend upon the State,” she said.

Looking ahead, Persad-Bissessar pledged the executive branch will continue to provide all necessary funding and resources to the Judiciary to advance its efficiency goals, and confirmed the justice reform program will continue with additional legislative and administrative updates in the coming term.

After eight years of protracted negotiations that have outlasted two national administrations, three union presidents and three chief personnel officers, the Trinidad and Tobago government has issued a firm deadline to the Public Services Association (PSA): the union has 14 days to respond to the state’s final offer for resolving long-outstanding salary backpay claims covering 2014 to 2019.

The details of the final proposal were outlined in an official statement released by the Office of Chief Personnel Officer Commander Dr Daryl Dindial, following a new round of talks held Wednesday with PSA president Felisha Thomas and the union’s executive leadership team. The meeting was convened to review the PSA’s counterproposal to the government’s original backpay framework, which was first tabled in May.

At the core of the decade-long dispute is a 2023 December Memorandum of Agreement that secured a 10% salary increase for public sector workers, but deferred negotiations on the structural breakdown of the $3.8 billion total backpay package. In May, the CPO tabled the government’s first final position: a mixed package structured as 40% cash and 60% non-cash benefits, giving the PSA four weeks to respond. The union formally rejected that offer days later, submitting a counterproposal calling for a reverse split of 60% cash and 40% non-cash or deferred benefits.

Following the rejection, PSA president Thomas publicly voiced frustration in a late July Facebook post, noting that nearly two months had passed without a formal meeting to discuss the union’s counteroffer. At the time, Thomas told public sector members that the CPO’s office had stated it was still reviewing the proposal and could not schedule a sit-down. As of Thursday, efforts by media to secure additional comment from Thomas on the latest round of talks were unsuccessful.

In his official statement on the new meeting, Dindial reaffirmed that the 40% cash / 60% non-cash structure remains the government’s non-negotiable final offer. He emphasized that the administration has structured the proposal to balance the needs of public workers with long-term fiscal responsibility, arguing that the framework is designed to protect public sector jobs amid economic pressures.

Dindial explained that the non-cash components of the package carry tangible value for workers, and in many cases require the government to forgo projected revenue to offset workers’ outstanding obligations. The only adjustment the government has made to the original May offer is a new flexible payment option: workers can choose to receive their cash portion of backpay in monthly installments spread across a three-year period, rather than a lump sum.

The CPO added that all other public sector bargaining units have already finalized negotiations for the 2014–2019 salary periods, leaving the PSA as the only major public service association yet to resolve the backpay issue. “This process must now move towards finalization,” Dindial said, noting that the government’s position has been clearly articulated after eight years of talks, and the latest framework is intended to deliver a resolution that is both fiscally responsible and sustainable for the country.

He urged the PSA leadership to seriously consider the offer in order to bring the long-running dispute to a close and deliver long-awaited certainty to thousands of public sector workers across the country. Beyond the two-week deadline for a formal response, Dindial thanked Thomas and the PSA executive for their continued engagement throughout the years of negotiations, and reiterated the government’s commitment to reaching a resolution that is fair, responsible and sustainable for all parties.

The non-cash benefits included in the government’s offer cover a wide range of worker needs: offsets for mortgage and rental obligations owed to the Housing Development Corporation and Trinidad and Tobago Mortgage Bank, settlement of outstanding personal tax liabilities, $3,500 in executive-level medical coverage, tuition fee offsets for students attending state-owned tertiary institutions, tax exemptions for purchases of new and roll-on/roll-off vehicles, plus food cards and fuel assistance.