Senator Chester Hughes Argues that a Provision in the Firearms (Amendment) Bill is an Admission of Its Flaws

Minority Leader Senator Chester Hughes turned the Firearms (Amendment) Bill's own explanatory memorandum against it in Monday afternoon's Senate debate, arguing that a law which mandates a 15-year minimum while simultaneously empowering the Court of Appeal to go below it concedes, in its own text, that mandatory sentencing is the wrong instrument.

He prefaced the argument with an unsparing assessment of the benches opposite. "I listened to all of the senators, especially those on the government bench, and I said, you know, there's a deficiency there. They're qualified in everything except law, and they do not understand how the legal system works," the Minority Leader said.

The misunderstanding, as he framed it, begins with the separation of powers: "At the end of the day, the courts are separate [from] the parliament, [which is] separate [from] the executive. This is the legislative. We come here. We make laws. We don't interfere in judicial matters. The judiciary deals with the whole interpretation of the laws."

Reading the Bill's Own Words

Senator Hughes then read directly from the bill's explanatory memorandum: the Court of Appeal "may, if it determines that the imposition of the prescribed minimum penalty would be manifestly excessive and unjust, impose a sentence that is below the prescribed minimum."

"That's what it says. I don't know if I'm reading different, Madame President and if there's an amendment that I didn't get," he remarked. "The same parliament is saying that the High Court must give you a minimum of 15 years. And if the Court of Appeal thinks that you should get less, they have the right to give you less."

The certificate mechanism, he argued, makes the contradiction explicit at the moment of sentencing. Ordinarily, he noted, "either party can appeal a decision if they feel that the judge imposed a sentence on them that is high or wrong, they appeal; if the DPP feels that the judge's sentence, as a prosecutor, is too low, he can appeal." But under this bill, "you know it's wrong from the start of sentencing... The judge is already accepting that it's wrong. So, the judge is giving you a certificate saying my hands are tied. Therefore, I am going to allow the appeal court to overturn my decision."

His reductio followed: "So the appeal court can say, 'Okay, they gave you 15. I'm going to give you one.' So if that happened the other day, why are we here? Why are we here? If the system is not broken, why are we here? Aren't we supposed to be here to strengthen the system?"

The reasoning aligned the Minority Leader with Senator Malaka Parker, who earlier branded the certificate mechanism "cowardly," and with Senator Ashworth Azille's morning-session question of whether the provision merely "delays the inevitable."

What Strengthening the System Looks Like

Senator Hughes was explicit that his quarrel is not with toughness but with the bill's theory of change. "This is not strengthening the system," he declared. "What this is doing is changing the penalty."

Strengthening, he argued, has a concrete meaning the bill never touches: "Strengthening the system means giving the police officers in this country the requisite training, giving them the requisite tools to perform their job, and improving the police force — improving the prosecution unit within the force. That's what strengthening the system does."

And he challenged the government benches to show the social programming that should accompany the penalties: "This bill [has] not told me your measures. I've not heard any senator representing the government's interests come to this honourable house and say what Social Transformation is doing, what the various departments of government are doing with the various problems that we're facing as a society. We come with the same old rhetoric that was passed on to us from our leaders in the Lower House."

Disappearing Evidence

The Minority Leader grounded the critique in what he said police officers themselves tell him about why gun cases stall. "I've asked a few officers: what's the problem?" he said. "Sometimes the evidence — they can't get the report back in time. So, every time a person goes to court, it's put off, put off, put off; adjourn, adjourn, adjourn."

He offered a human emblem of the capacity gap: forensic specialist Latoya Lake. "She had to leave this country because we didn't set up a proper forensic system. She went to St. Kitts. She's back now, because the government has determined that it cannot expend so much money to start its own forensic programme," he said. "The point is... we are so far behind. We are so far behind that we are not accepting that." The observation folded into a theme that ran through the entire sitting: Senator Jonathan Wehner's morning examination of the Antigua and Barbuda Forensic Services' unspent budgets, and Senator Azille's demand for answers on the ballistics backlog.

Unsolved Crimes Impeding Closure

Senator Hughes then spoke for the families the bill is nominally for. Recalling the Senator Azille's request for a moment of silence for the victims of gun crime, he argued that solidarity without solved cases is theatre: "If the House was serious [in saying] to the families of those victims of gun crime that we are here for you and we're standing with you — it's not about passing a bill to say you get 15 years minimum. It's showing to those families that we're going to open back those cases, and we're going to put the necessary mechanisms in place, and bring the necessary support to the police force, to ensure justice is brought to your family. But I don't hear that."

"What I've heard is that we're going to be tough — tough on those who are planning to commit crime," he said. "But what about solving those crimes to bring closure? Bringing closure for these families. It's bringing closure."

The demand echoed Opposition Leader Jamale Pringle's warning when the bill cleared the Lower House: "If you cannot catch the criminal, this bill serves no purpose."