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If you didn’t see PUP Senator Eamon Courtenay at today’s Senate Select Meeting, its because he was in Port of Spain, Trinidad, arguing before a full panel of judges at the CCJ.  Its the ongoing criminal appeal of the conviction of Gregory August for the murder of 73 year old Alvin Robinson. Â He's asking the CCJ to overturn his conviction after his lawyers successfully convinced the Court of Appeal to make a landmark judgement scrapping life sentences. Today in two and half hours of arguments his attorney Eamon Courtney touched on a number of key points including the makeup of the parole board:…

Eamon Courtenay S.C - August’s Attorney
“Regardless of what sentence or how Gab is to dealt with or how August is to be dealt with if his conviction is not set aside, the life sentence must be reducible and they must be subject to a parole regime which is constitutionally compliant. Our difficulty with the composition is that and that is section 3. There are 9 members, 4 of whom have and are required to have expertise that is relevant to determining parole issues. 5 of them do not, 5 government connected person who bring nothing to the table. So that composition in our respectful submission, the case of which speaks to the composition of the board and the need for it not to be connected to the executive and not connected to the prison.â€￾

Judge
“Some of these persons that you object to might bring something to that table. They might be able to indicate whether there are circumstances such as to justify the conclusion that the person is likely to reoffend.â€￾

Eamon Courtenay S.C
“I will respectfully submit that the Chief Executive Officer of the ministry responsible for prisons cannot assist with that question. I say the same thing about a person who is representing the officer of the director of public prosecutions. That person is representing an office who has absolutely no expertise, no experience and in fact has opinions with respect to how persons, ‘prisoners’, offenders are going to behave. The Ministry of Human Development with my great respectful submission cannot sit and seriously bring to the table any experience about whether or not someone is likely to reoffend.â€￾

Cheryl-Lynn Vidal - DPP
“Just because members of the board are employed by the executive that does not therefore mean that they could be independent and that the specific complaint in relation to persons who would have representation on the board was in our view not well founded.â€￾

The CCJ has reserved judgment. August and his co - accused ALWIN GABB sat in court in Belize City and watched the proceedings form Trinidad via teleconference.