Southern Lawyers Association welcomes review of PDO process

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Pres­i­dent of the As­sem­bly of South­ern Lawyers (ASL), Saira Lakhan, says the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to re­voke the Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) is­sued against Do­minic and Genevieve Hadeed shows the need for con­tin­ued over­sight of emer­gency pow­ers, while cau­tion­ing against pre­judg­ing the out­come of the on­go­ing crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

The Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty an­nounced on Thurs­day that it had re­voked the PDOs fol­low­ing a com­pre­hen­sive re­view of the le­gal, med­ical and pub­lic in­ter­est is­sues sur­round­ing the case.

The Min­istry said the de­ci­sion al­so con­sid­ered rec­om­men­da­tions from the Con­sti­tu­tion Re­view Tri­bunal and on­go­ing as­sess­ments un­der the 2026 Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions.

De­spite the re­vo­ca­tion of the de­ten­tion or­ders, the Min­istry stressed that the crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the al­leged plot to as­sas­si­nate Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and oth­er se­nior Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials re­mains ac­tive.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, sup­port­ed by lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al law en­force­ment agen­cies, con­tin­ues to in­ves­ti­gate the mat­ter, while au­thor­i­ties say mea­sures re­main in place to pro­tect pub­lic safe­ty.

Com­ment­ing on the de­vel­op­ment, Lakhan said the Min­is­ter’s de­ci­sion demon­strates the im­por­tance of en­sur­ing emer­gency pow­ers are ex­er­cised with­in the bounds of the law.

“The Min­is­ter’s de­ci­sion un­der­scores the im­por­tance of en­sur­ing that emer­gency pow­ers re­main sub­ject to con­tin­u­ous re­view and are ex­er­cised in a man­ner that is law­ful, nec­es­sary and pro­por­tion­ate,” she said.

Lakhan al­so stressed that while the de­ten­tion or­ders have been re­voked, the crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion has not con­clud­ed and should be al­lowed to pro­ceed with­out out­side in­flu­ence.

“While the Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders have been re­voked, the crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­mains on­go­ing, and it is im­por­tant that due process be al­lowed to take its course with­out spec­u­la­tion,” she added.

The re­vo­ca­tion of the Hadeeds’ de­ten­tion or­ders has sparked po­lit­i­cal de­bate, with the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment call­ing for an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the Gov­ern­ment’s use of Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders dur­ing the 2026 State of Emer­gency.

The Gov­ern­ment has main­tained that the de­ci­sion to re­voke the or­ders does not af­fect the on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the al­leged as­sas­si­na­tion plot and has re­it­er­at­ed that na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures re­main in place as the probe con­tin­ues.