Opposition, Panday raise alarm as Government seeks SoE extension

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor – Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

As the Gov­ern­ment moves to ex­tend the State of Emer­gency (SoE) for a fur­ther three months, the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) is warn­ing that the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion could keep Trinidad and To­ba­go un­der emer­gency pow­ers for years by ex­ploit­ing what it de­scribes as a con­sti­tu­tion­al loop­hole.

How­ev­er, the Prime Min­is­ter dis­missed the crit­i­cism, scoff­ing at the qual­i­ty of at­tor­neys with­in the PNM.

Un­der Sec­tion 10 of the Con­sti­tu­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, an SoE can be ex­tend­ed by the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives for up to three months at a time us­ing a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty. How­ev­er, if the Gov­ern­ment wants to ex­tend the SoE be­yond an ini­tial cu­mu­la­tive pe­ri­od of six months, a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty is re­quired. The ex­ten­sion must then be ap­proved by a three-fifths ma­jor­i­ty vote of all mem­bers of both the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and the Sen­ate.

De­spite gov­ern­ing un­der States of Emer­gency for a com­bined nine and a half months, the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion has not yet had to seek a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty in Par­lia­ment.

The first SoE ran from Ju­ly 18, 2025, to Jan­u­ary 31, 2026, while the sec­ond be­gan on March 3 and is due to ex­pire on June 17. In both cas­es, the Gov­ern­ment re­mained with­in the ini­tial six-month pe­ri­od dur­ing which on­ly a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty is re­quired for ex­ten­sions.

PNM chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les told Guardian Me­dia that by seek­ing a fur­ther three-month ex­ten­sion be­fore reach­ing the six-month thresh­old of the cur­rent SoE, the Gov­ern­ment can con­tin­ue to re­ly on its par­lia­men­tary ma­jor­i­ty and avoid the need for spe­cial-ma­jor­i­ty ap­proval.

He said the par­ty is close­ly mon­i­tor­ing whether the UNC will, as it did pre­vi­ous­ly, se­cure its three-month ex­ten­sion, end the SoE in Sep­tem­ber and then re­turn with a fresh SoE, there­by restart­ing the process.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day, Gon­za­les said, “Our at­tor­neys have al­ready start­ed look­ing at the mat­ter, look­ing at the Con­sti­tu­tion, es­pe­cial­ly whether the framers of the Con­sti­tu­tion had in­tend­ed, by giv­ing the State ex­ten­sive pow­ers un­der a state of emer­gency, for a state of emer­gency to be utilised by the ex­ec­u­tive arm of the State to treat with nor­mal every­day crim­i­nal­i­ty in our coun­try.”

He added, “We will go to the Par­lia­ment to­mor­row (to­day). We will lis­ten to the Gov­ern­ment and the in­for­ma­tion that they present, and we are go­ing to use that in­for­ma­tion to guide us as to the ac­tion we plan to take with re­spect to the le­gal­i­ty and con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of this state of emer­gency.”

Pan­day: SoE ex­ten­sion about si­lenc­ing dis­sent

Pa­tri­ot­ic Front leader Mick­ela Pan­day is ques­tion­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to seek a three-month ex­ten­sion of the State of Emer­gency, ar­gu­ing that the move is less about com­bat­ing crime and more about re­strict­ing pub­lic crit­i­cism and protest.

In a video state­ment ahead of to­day’s par­lia­men­tary de­bate, Pan­day said she does not be­lieve the pro­posed ex­ten­sion is nec­es­sary to fight crime, claim­ing many cit­i­zens share her con­cerns.

“The Gov­ern­ment says that this ex­ten­sion of the State of Emer­gency is about fight­ing crime. I don’t be­lieve it,” she said.

Pan­day point­ed to the May 27 protest out­side the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions and the si­mul­ta­ne­ous an­nounce­ment of 15 “no-protest zones” as ev­i­dence of what she de­scribed as a grow­ing ef­fort to sup­press dis­sent.

She ar­gued that as nurs­es, work­ers, unions and cit­i­zens be­came more vo­cal in de­mand­ing an­swers from the Gov­ern­ment, au­thor­i­ties moved to seek ad­di­tion­al emer­gency pow­ers be­fore the cur­rent SoE ex­pires on June 17.

Ques­tion­ing the ef­fec­tive­ness of the emer­gency mea­sures, Pan­day asked whether cit­i­zens gen­uine­ly feel safer and whether crime has been sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duced.

“If this State of Emer­gency is work­ing, why do you need an­oth­er three months? And if it isn’t work­ing, why should the peo­ple of this coun­try sur­ren­der an­oth­er three months of their free­doms?” she asked.

The Pa­tri­ot­ic Front leader al­so dis­missed sug­ges­tions by Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials that crit­i­cism of the ad­min­is­tra­tion is root­ed in racism, prej­u­dice or po­lit­i­cal hos­til­i­ty.

Pan­day fur­ther ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of ap­ply­ing a dou­ble stan­dard to pub­lic demon­stra­tions, not­ing that protests out­side the homes and of­fices of pub­lic of­fi­cials oc­curred un­der pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tions and were then viewed as le­git­i­mate ex­pres­sions of democ­ra­cy.

Main­tain­ing that cit­i­zens have a con­sti­tu­tion­al right to hold lead­ers ac­count­able, Pan­day urged the pub­lic to con­tin­ue speak­ing out on na­tion­al is­sues.

“Si­lence is not democ­ra­cy. Ac­count­abil­i­ty is,” she said, adding that while the Gov­ern­ment may com­mand a par­lia­men­tary ma­jor­i­ty, “the peo­ple still have a voice.”

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad says States of Emer­gency have been ef­fec­tive in re­duc­ing vi­o­lent crime but warned that gov­ern­ments must work to­wards end­ing them rather than al­low­ing emer­gency pow­ers to be­come a per­ma­nent fea­ture of gov­er­nance.

Speak­ing on the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­pos­al to ex­tend the cur­rent SoE by a fur­ther three months, Seep­er­sad de­scribed emer­gency pow­ers as a tool that should be re­served for ex­cep­tion­al cir­cum­stances.

“A state of emer­gency has a time and place. Ide­al­ly, it should be a very lim­it­ed time and place for the use of a state of emer­gency as a strat­e­gy,” he said.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing that emer­gency mea­sures can be jus­ti­fied when law en­force­ment re­quires wider pow­ers to tack­le se­ri­ous crim­i­nal threats, Seep­er­sad cau­tioned that no coun­try should de­pend on an SoE in­def­i­nite­ly.

“You have to work very dili­gent­ly to­wards tran­si­tion­ing out of a state of emer­gency,” he said.

He not­ed that pro­longed re­liance on emer­gency pow­ers can neg­a­tive­ly af­fect a coun­try’s in­ter­na­tion­al im­age, po­ten­tial­ly in­flu­enc­ing per­cep­tions among in­vestors and tourists by cre­at­ing the im­pres­sion that crime and in­sta­bil­i­ty are out of con­trol.

De­spite those con­cerns, Seep­er­sad said the crime da­ta shows clear ben­e­fits. Ac­cord­ing to him, vi­o­lent crime, bur­glar­ies, lar­ce­nies and sex­u­al of­fences tend to de­cline dur­ing pe­ri­ods of emer­gency rule and rise again once re­stric­tions are lift­ed.

While in­sist­ing that the cur­rent SoE is mak­ing a dif­fer­ence, Seep­er­sad ar­gued that last­ing crime re­duc­tion will ul­ti­mate­ly de­pend on ad­dress­ing the root caus­es of crim­i­nal be­hav­iour, par­tic­u­lar­ly through in­ter­ven­tions aimed at young peo­ple.