Panday raises constitutional concerns over new SoE

AKASH SAMA­ROO

Lead Ed­i­tor – Pol­i­tics

Pa­tri­ot­ic Front leader Mick­ela Pan­day is warn­ing that Trinidad and To­ba­go risks weak­en­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­tec­tions if emer­gency pow­ers are re­peat­ed­ly used as the pri­ma­ry re­sponse to crime.

Pan­day is­sued the cau­tion fol­low­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s de­c­la­ra­tion of a new State of Emer­gency (SoE), ar­gu­ing that while cit­i­zens are un­der­stand­ably fear­ful of ris­ing vi­o­lence, emer­gency pow­ers can­not re­place a com­pre­hen­sive crime strat­e­gy.

In a state­ment on so­cial me­dia, Pan­day ac­knowl­edged that crime has erod­ed pub­lic con­fi­dence and left com­mu­ni­ties anx­ious.

“Cit­i­zens are frus­trat­ed, fam­i­lies are wor­ried, com­mu­ni­ties want re­lief,” she said. “Crim­i­nals must be caught, pros­e­cut­ed and pun­ished. But emer­gency pow­ers must tar­get crim­i­nals, not weak­en con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­tec­tions for the in­no­cent,” Pan­day added.

How­ev­er, Pan­day stressed that a State of Emer­gency is mere­ly a tem­po­rary le­gal mech­a­nism rather than a long-term so­lu­tion to crime.

“A state of emer­gency is not a crime plan,” she said. “It is not polic­ing re­form, it is not in­tel­li­gence re­form, it is not pros­e­cu­tion re­form, and it is cer­tain­ly not a sub­sti­tute for a long-term strat­e­gy.”

Pan­day ar­gued that near­ly a year af­ter the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion took of­fice, cit­i­zens de­serve clar­i­ty about what per­ma­nent struc­tur­al changes have been made to tack­le crime.

The Pa­tri­ot­ic Front leader al­so raised con­sti­tu­tion­al con­cerns about sev­er­al pro­vi­sions with­in the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions.

Among the is­sues high­light­ed was the po­ten­tial sus­pen­sion of the writ of habeas cor­pus in cer­tain cir­cum­stances, mean­ing de­tainees may not im­me­di­ate­ly have ac­cess to a judge to chal­lenge their de­ten­tion.

Pan­day al­so point­ed to pro­vi­sions al­low­ing law en­force­ment of­fi­cers to en­ter and search homes with­out first ob­tain­ing a war­rant from the courts.

“That means a po­lice of­fi­cer can en­ter your home based on sus­pi­cion alone, with­out first go­ing be­fore a judge,” she said.

She fur­ther warned that the reg­u­la­tions may crim­i­nalise speech deemed prej­u­di­cial to pub­lic safe­ty, in­clud­ing how cit­i­zens ex­press opin­ions pub­licly or on­line.

“These are ex­tra­or­di­nary pow­ers, and ex­tra­or­di­nary pow­ers de­mand ex­tra­or­di­nary safe­guards,” Pan­day said.

She main­tained that pro­tect­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al rights should not be in­ter­pret­ed as pro­tect­ing crim­i­nals.

“It pro­tects in­no­cent cit­i­zens from the mis­use of pow­er,” she said.

Ac­cord­ing to Pan­day, strong gov­er­nance re­quires trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty rather than the sus­pen­sion of ju­di­cial over­sight.

“Ac­count­abil­i­ty strength­ens pub­lic con­fi­dence. It does not weak­en it,” she said.

Pan­day al­so ques­tioned what long-term sys­tems will re­main in place once the State of Emer­gency ex­pires.

“If this is the crime strat­e­gy, what hap­pens when the state of emer­gency ends?” she asked. “What per­ma­nent sys­tems have been strength­ened? What con­vic­tion rates have been im­proved? What net­works have been dis­man­tled?”

She ar­gued that sus­tain­able crime re­duc­tion re­quires in­tel­li­gence-led polic­ing, stronger pros­e­cu­tion and im­proved bor­der se­cu­ri­ty to dis­rupt crim­i­nal net­works.

“Crime will not be solved by re­peat­ed­ly sus­pend­ing nor­mal le­gal safe­guards,” Pan­day said.

“It will be solved by in­tel­li­gence-led polic­ing, stronger pros­e­cu­tion, se­cur­ing our bor­ders, and en­sur­ing that cas­es re­sult in con­vic­tions.”

Pan­day said Trinidad and To­ba­go must pur­sue pub­lic safe­ty while safe­guard­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al rights of its cit­i­zens.

“In fact, we must do both, be­cause we can­not build na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty by weak­en­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty,” the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front leader posit­ed.