Defence Minister defends ZOSOs; says loss of rights necessary in arresting crime

Sto­ries by Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

If Gov­ern­ment’s Spe­cial Op­er­a­tion Zones (ZOSO) Bill is geared to­wards get­ting rid of peo­ple who have AK-47 and Galil au­to­mat­ic as­sault weapons, the fact that peo­ple’s con­sti­tu­tion­al rights will be tar­get­ed “is a small price to pay,” says De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge.

And Sturge has slammed the “so­cial me­dia cho­rus” of com­plaints about the bill’s pro­vi­sion for ar­rest and search­es with­out war­rants—and he’s re­butted the T&T Law As­so­ci­a­tion’s con­cern on the harsh fines in the bill.

Sturge did so dur­ing yes­ter­day’s Sen­ate de­bate of the Law Re­form (Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tion) (Spe­cial Se­cu­ri­ty and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Mea­sures) Bill, 2026.

De­bate be­gan on Tues­day night and will con­tin­ue to­mor­row.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie, who pi­lot­ed the bill then, was out of T&T yes­ter­day.

Sturge said among crime-af­fect­ed con­stituen­cies, “Cen­tral Trinidad might be num­ber one. There was a time when bod­ies were drop­ping dai­ly in Laven­tille. When last have you heard that? That’s be­cause of ef­fec­tive ZOSO op­er­a­tions ... be­ing used for the last ten years. Now we’re seek­ing to have it clothed with the re­spectabil­i­ty of law.”

Sturge took is­sue with what he said was the “so­cial me­dia cho­rus”, “... where peo­ple seem to have a prob­lem with pun­ish­ment ... and this thing about ‘if a $20,000 fine is im­posed, I might have to wait on an­oth­er salary or two’. The courts al­low ex­ten­sion of time to pay fines.”

“But it seems as though some peo­ple in this coun­try are all for law and or­der and Gov­ern­ment be­ing tough, un­til the law ap­plies to them. That has to change...”

On the “big song and dance” al­so on so­cial me­dia about ar­rest mi­nus war­rant, Sturge said one can al­ready, at com­mon law—and in some statutes—be ar­rest­ed with­out war­rant.

There are al­so ex­am­ples where a search of a per­son/prop­er­ty/ve­hi­cle can be done mi­nus war­rant. He said there are many in­stances where those sworn to pro­tect and serve, alert peo­ple of war­rants.

“We’re not say­ing in all in­stances, search­es will be done with­out war­rants. It’s sim­ply giv­ing the pow­er to do so,” he said.

He said search­es could pro­ceed mi­nus a war­rant. If re­dress is sought in courts, “you might end up with nom­i­nal dam­ages. Or ze­ro dam­ages, if TTPS demon­strates why they searched...”

“... Be­cause the law op­er­ates with a mea­sure of prac­ti­cal­i­ty and com­mon sense and the law would say, if in that sit­u­a­tion we’re try­ing to get rid of peo­ple who have AK-47s and Galil weapons, then the fact that we tar­get your con­sti­tu­tion­al right is a small price to pay ...” Sturge added.

He said cor­dons of ar­eas don’t mean one can’t leave the cor­don.

“But there’s the dis­cre­tion of the of­fi­cers in charge and, of course, you’ll be searched.”

Say­ing the cur­few was al­so nec­es­sary, Sturge said, “This (bill) is a tar­get­ed ap­proach, de­signed to go af­ter those who the act speaks quite clear­ly about. Not the or­di­nary cit­i­zen. The or­di­nary cit­i­zen can go about their busi­ness un­less there’s rea­son­able sus­pi­cion/grounds.

“... And that re­lies on in­for­mants’ in­for­ma­tion, in­tel­li­gence and on things per­ceived. It’s not sim­ply you’re wear­ing your pants be­low your but­tocks and I can see you’re wear­ing a Hanes un­der­wear and you look like the type of per­son who may have guns—al­though for me that’s a very good start. But I’m not a po­lice­man,” Sturge added.

High fine need­ed

to de­ter cul­prits

Sturge said some LATT sug­ges­tions are ad­mirable and may find favour. But he cit­ed some LATT con­cerns—such as the $50,000 fine for cur­few breach­ing—which the as­so­ci­a­tion found dis­pro­por­tion­ate.

“While Par­lia­ment says the fine is $50,000 and im­pris­on­ment, the law is clear that Par­lia­ment can’t tell a court what sen­tence should be im­posed,” Sturge ad­vised.

He said where a sen­tence is stat­ed in a bill, the courts in­ter­pret it as a max­i­mum. This doesn’t re­move courts’ dis­cre­tion to im­pose a less­er sen­tence, though it can’t be above the max­i­mum penal­ty, he not­ed.

“So, per­sons breach­ing cur­few and who may very well have good ex­cuse and can sat­is­fy a court the ex­cuse is good, it’s open to a court to say al­though the max­i­mum is $50,000, we’ll fine you $5,000 or $10,000 or not fine you at all,” he said.

Sturge said the court can al­so im­pose a good be­hav­iour bond or rep­ri­mand and dis­charge de­pend­ing on the ar­gu­ment.

He dis­agreed the fine was dis­pro­por­tion­ate, since he said it tar­gets peo­ple who can ac­tu­al­ly pay.

“... Gang lead­ers, who make mon­ey from drugs, hu­man traf­fick­ing, pros­ti­tu­tion, ex­tor­tion—how do you ex­pect to de­ter them if the fine is $5,000?”

Urg­ing sup­port for the bill, Sturge said, “We all have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to say to our black and brown broth­ers who are killing each oth­er and harm­ing the rest of us: no one here liv­ing in a rich area lives very far from the ghet­to. No mat­ter where you live, the ghet­to’s very close—so it will reach you...”

Re­ply­ing to In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor Josh Dray­ton’s call for a sun­set clause, Sturge said the bill pro­vides for re­view by a Par­lia­ment com­mit­tee and has a pro­vi­sion to mon­i­tor ef­fi­ca­cy.

He dis­missed Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi’s ar­gu­ments, in­clud­ing that the for­mer Op­po­si­tion Leader’s non-re­sponse to the PNM gov­ern­ment on such a bill had halt­ed it.