The Tribune

By SANCHESKA BROWN

Tribune Staff Reporter

sbrown@tribunemedia.net

BAMBOO Town MP Renward Wells said yesterday he will make an announcement “very soon” concerning his future with the Progressive Liberal Party.

Mr Wells made his comments while criticising the justice system for “failing to protect Bahamians”.

He said in order for crime to truly decrease in the Bahamas, “Swift Justice” must actually be swift and capital punishment needs to be enforced.

In June, after Fort Charlotte MP Dr Andre Rollins and Marco City MP Greg Moss quit the PLP, Mr Wells, who many speculated would also leave the party, told members of the press he “contemplated resigning” but decided to stay in the party.

However, when asked at that time if he would quit the PLP before the 2017 general election, Mr Wells said: “All things are possible.”

Mr Wells spoke to reporters on Sunday, moments after the son of one of his constituents was gunned down in broad daylight while visiting his mother in East Street South.

The Bamboo Town MP referred to a low conviction rate for murder trials over the past 15 years, which he said is evidence that the justice system is failing.

“We have to get the criminal justice system to do what it ought. I am one of these (politicians) who persons always lambast for quoting scriptures in Parliament but I have to be who I am and even the good book says that ‘when justice is slow in coming, the heart of the people grow more wicked and they do more wickedly’ and what we have been seeing is because there is no consequences,” Mr Wells said.

“The (fellows) gun people down in broad daylight,” he added. “There has to be a consequence. I have been calling for more aggressive punishment. Calling for persons to move the system forward and prosecute those who are involved in these type of activities and at the end of the day everyone knows I am a firm believer in capital punishment, so much so that I don’t believe in all this stuff the Privy Council has come with, talking about worst of the worst is nonsense.”

He was referring to a ruling by the London-based Privy Council, this country’s highest court of appeal, which said that a killing had to be “the worst of the worst” to warrant the death penalty.

“To me, if you take the life of a man ... then your life should be taken by the state. Plain and simple. And only the state can step in to a situation and stop the cycle of violence,” the Bamboo Town MP added.

Mr Wells said no matter how many officers are on the streets and how many persons are arrested, it is ineffective unless someone gets “punished”.

“We have talked about Swift Justice. We have talked about all of the preventive measures but one of the major preventive measures is for people to see that there are consequences for the actions of individuals,” he said.

“You can do all the things you have to do in terms of putting police on the streets and bringing persons to the courts, but if you are not going to get the conviction and the Bahamian people will not get to see the person punished, the system become ineffective.”