Government outlines legislative agenda for 2026

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar laid out her Gov­ern­ment's leg­isla­tive agen­da for 2026

We've list­ed them here...

1.Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles and Road Traf­fic (Amend­ment) Bill, 2026

•Aims to amend ex­ist­ing laws gov­ern­ing road use, traf­fic man­age­ment, and ve­hi­cle reg­u­la­tion.

2.Law Re­form—Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions, Spe­cial Se­cu­ri­ty, and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Mea­sures Bill, 2026

•Seeks to cre­ate spe­cial se­cu­ri­ty zones mod­eled af­ter Ja­maica to bet­ter ad­dress or­gan­ised crime and com­mu­ni­ty safe­ty in high-risk ar­eas.

3.To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (Amend­ment) Bill, 2026

•Moves to­ward greater au­ton­o­my for To­ba­go with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s gov­er­nance struc­ture.

4.To­ba­go Self-Gov­ern­ment Bill, 2026

•In­tends to en­trench To­ba­go’s sta­tus as an equal, au­tonomous part­ner in the na­tion and clar­i­fy gov­er­nance struc­tures.

5.Con­sti­tu­tion Amend­ment Bill, 2026

•Will sup­port To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my and pro­pos­es the right to a tri­al with­in a rea­son­able time.

6.Ju­di­cia­ry Re­form (Of­fice of the Chan­cel­lor & Civ­il Di­vi­sion)

•Pro­pos­es to es­tab­lish a Chan­cel­lor’s Of­fice and re­or­ga­nize the court sys­tem to im­prove speed and ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice.

7.Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Jus­tice In­dictable Pro­ceed­ings Act (AJI­PA) Amend­ments

•To ad­dress op­er­a­tional de­lays and short­com­ings just iden­ti­fied, ex­pe­dit­ing crim­i­nal jus­tice.

8.Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (Spe­cial Zones Act)

•Will re­place the ex­tend­ed state of emer­gency with lo­calised pow­ers to com­bat gang vi­o­lence and main­tain or­der.

9.Firearms Re­form Bill

•Aims for stricter con­trol, de­struc­tion, and se­cure dis­pos­al of firearms and am­mu­ni­tion.

10.Pri­vate Se­cu­ri­ty In­dus­try Bill

•Es­tab­lish­es a Pri­vate Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vice Au­thor­i­ty and reg­u­lates pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty firms for le­gal, op­er­a­tional, and eth­i­cal com­pli­ance.

11.Bail Act Amend­ments

•In­tro­duces stricter source-of-funds re­quire­ments and lim­its bail grants—align­ing with in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards for fi­nan­cial crimes, re­mov­ing T&T from black­lists.

12.Judge-Alone Tri­al Re­form

•Re­quires three-judge pan­els (in­stead of one) for cap­i­tal cas­es, en­sur­ing fair­er and more scru­ti­nised ver­dicts in se­ri­ous crimes.

13.Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Al­co­hol, Cannabis, Dan­ger­ous Drugs, Gam­bling, and To­bac­co) Bill

•Up­dates age lim­its for sales/con­sump­tion and re­fines reg­u­la­tion of cannabis, drug use, and gam­bling.

14.Guar­an­teed Right to Time­ly Tri­al (Con­sti­tu­tion Amend­ment)

•Aims to ad­dress ex­ces­sive pre­tri­al de­ten­tion with a con­sti­tu­tion­al right to a prompt tri­al.

15.CARI­COM Ar­rest War­rant Bill

•Im­ple­ments a re­gion­al treaty for cross-bor­der ar­rests with­in the CARI­COM com­mu­ni­ty to fight crime col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly.