De­spite ear­li­er promis­es that con­sul­ta­tions on the pro­posed stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion (Self-De­fence and De­fence of Prop­er­ty) Bill, 2025, will reach every con­stituen­cy, Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein could not con­firm yes­ter­day that ses­sions were held across the 13 Op­po­si­tion con­stituen­cies.

Pressed on the mat­ter dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian me­dia, Ho­sein side­stepped the is­sue, stat­ing that the ques­tion should be placed square­ly to Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, and in­sist­ing that re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for en­gag­ing con­stituents does not rest with the Gov­ern­ment alone.

“You’ll have to ask Ms Beck­les. I know she is of­ten asleep at times, so maybe she needs to wake up and as­sume her po­si­tion as Op­po­si­tion Leader, but the Gov­ern­ment is busy at work. They are more con­cerned about oth­er triv­ial mat­ters; we are con­cerned about gov­er­nance and pro­tect­ing our cit­i­zens,” Ho­sein said.