PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad--Criminals who are faced with the death penalty should be hanged in Woodford Square, says Minister of Justice Herbert Volney.

Volney was speaking to the Express Wednesday, after arriving in Tobago for the People's Partnership's four-day workshop.

Volney said he is back to work and "ready to kick ball" after undergoing heart bypass surgery in June.

Questioned on the death penalty and whether he supported it, Volney said, "I am not opposed in principle to hanging persons, but it has to be in respect to brutal and heinous crimes."

He said sometimes there are crimes of passion and he does not believe a person should be hanged for this. Persons who kill a child, an elderly person, a police officer or prison officer, he said, should be hanged.

Works and Transport Minister Jack Warner was the first Government Minister to start lobbying for the resumption of hangings. In fact, Warner has been able to get Attorney General Anand Ramlogan to set up a committee to look into the issue of resuming hangings.

However, not all party members are in favour. Most recently, Minister of trade and Industry Stephen Cadiz said he was not in favour of returning to the hangman. Before him, social activist Verna St Rose Greaves also said she would consider leaving the party if her Government resumed the practice.

Wednesday, Volney was very vocal about hangings, saying they should be a public affair.

"Persons should be hanged in Woodford Square, 6 or 7am in the morning. The people should see the hangings take place, they need to feel the fear of God and have fear for the law," he said.

Volney, a former High Court Judge, said the process in the Court of Appeal is too slow and it is not producing as fast as it should. He said this is another aspect the Ministry of Justice will be working on.

The Ministry of Justice is a new ministry created by the People's Partnership Government. Wednesday, Volney admitted his ministry was not yet fully operational.

"We haven't moved to our headquarters yet. We're having some difficulty as there is no UDeCOTT board in place yet, but we have a core group of lawyers working in the ministry performing the task of transforming the criminal justice system. We are working and I am well advanced in dealing with the probe into the Uff report," he said. Trinidad Express