Sturge tells Opposition, media temper questions on sensitive security matters

Min­is­ter of De­fence, Wayne Sturge, says ques­tions touch­ing on the state of mil­i­tary as­sets, their ac­qui­si­tion, or re­quests for such as­sets, par­tic­u­lar­ly where dis­cussed in cam­era with al­lies, would not be en­ter­tained.

In a state­ment, Sturge said a cam­paign of what he called mis­in­for­ma­tion by the Op­po­si­tion and sec­tions of the me­dia has cen­tred on high­ly sen­si­tive na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mat­ters, in­clud­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s co­op­er­a­tion with the Unit­ed States in com­bat­ing nar­co-ter­ror­ism and pro­tect­ing the coun­try from threats is­sued by the Gov­ern­ment of Venezuela.

He said the nar­ra­tive ex­pand­ed to sug­gest that the Gov­ern­ment was com­plic­it in tak­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go in­to a war with Venezuela, “a war which nev­er hap­pened”.

The re­lease said the Gov­ern­ment ob­served what it de­scribed as a co­or­di­nat­ed ef­fort over sev­er­al months in which mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion and some me­dia out­lets ques­tioned mat­ters tied to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

Ac­cord­ing to the state­ment, many of the ques­tions raised by Op­po­si­tion mem­bers and some ex­pe­ri­enced jour­nal­ists in­volved in­for­ma­tion that could not be pub­licly dis­closed or com­pelled to be dis­closed.

The Gov­ern­ment al­so crit­i­cised the con­duct of the Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Arou­ca-Lopinot, ac­cus­ing the MP of en­gag­ing in a pat­tern of be­hav­iour de­signed to cause fear among cit­i­zens.

The re­lease said, " when the Gov­ern­ment re­fused to an­swer ques­tions on the ba­sis that dis­clo­sure would be in­im­i­cal to the pub­lic in­ter­est, both the Op­po­si­tion and el­e­ments with­in the me­dia por­trayed the re­fusal as an at­tempt to with­hold in­for­ma­tion from the pub­lic for sin­is­ter rea­sons."

Sturge said that it there­fore de­cid­ed to out­line the le­gal po­si­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go and across the Com­mon­wealth to al­low the pub­lic to bet­ter un­der­stand the is­sue.

The re­lease ref­er­enced the judg­ment of the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the Privy Coun­cil in the 1916 case The Zamo­ra, quot­ing Lord Park­er of Wadding­ton:

“Those who are re­spon­si­ble for the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty must be the sole judge of what na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty re­quires. It would be ob­vi­ous­ly un­de­sir­able that such mat­ters should be made the sub­ject of ev­i­dence in a court of law or oth­er­wise dis­cussed in pub­lic”.

He al­so cit­ed the Coun­cil of Civ­il Ser­vice Unions v Min­is­ter for the Civ­il Ser­vice, in which the House of Lords found that de­ci­sions on whether na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty re­quire­ments out­weigh the du­ty of fair­ness rest with the Gov­ern­ment, since it alone has ac­cess to the nec­es­sary in­for­ma­tion.

It fur­ther ref­er­enced the de­ci­sion in Sec­re­tary of State for the Home De­part­ment v AF, where Lord Bing­ham found that dis­clo­sures should not be made where they would be con­trary to the pub­lic in­ter­est.

Sturge said these judg­ments align with Sec­tion 25 of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act of Trinidad and To­ba­go, which pro­hibits dis­clo­sure of in­for­ma­tion like­ly to prej­u­dice the coun­try’s de­fence or the law­ful ac­tiv­i­ties of se­cu­ri­ty or in­tel­li­gence ser­vices.

Sturge has called on "both the Op­po­si­tion and sec­tions of the me­dia to act re­spon­si­bly and with in­tegri­ty when rais­ing is­sues in­volv­ing sen­si­tive mat­ters of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty."