And with freedom of the press comes the safety of the press to carry out its duties. Last night you heard court reporter Anita Nembhard say that sometimes she fears for her life. That's after she was deliberately coughed on by a defendant coming out of court on Monday.
That incident highlights the amendment to the criminal code act that will see the definition of aggravated assault expanded to include several groups, including the media. Since Fonseca was the one who introduced it in the house, the media asked him about it.
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
"I didn't see it but somebody told me that a defendant coming out of court was very aggressive with a court reporter. Yeah, exactly. I mean, those are the things that we have to, I think, be very firm about addressing."
"And that's the whole purpose of the criminal amendments that we're making and proposing. You know, we've had, as you all know, reports from the judiciary or magistrates in particular have been concerned about their security, their safety."
"We hear complaints as well from our immigration officers our customs officers our police officers, of course, BDF, Coast Guard, traffic officers. You know, and that reflects very poorly on us as a society."
"I know that sometimes these people are not properly trained and we have to do a better job of training them to deal with the public. But we, the public, we also have to do our part. We have to understand that these people are there doing their job. We have to be respectful of them and understand that, it's not personal. It's about doing their job and trying to create a law abiding society. So these amendments were all about that."
"And I hope that, as you said, they will address these issues such as, you know, a court reporter being aggressed by a defendant coming out of court. Very, very important that we send a very strong and clear signal to everybody that that type of behavior will not be tolerated."
