ZOSO ALARM

KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­[email protected]

Sev­er­al Op­po­si­tion MPs have raised con­cerns about the Gov­ern­ment’s new Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill, with for­mer min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and Port-of-Spain South MP Kei­th Scot­land de­scrib­ing it as “more egre­gious and se­ri­ous” than the Zone of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) Bill that failed in the Sen­ate ear­li­er this year.

Ahead of the bill’s ex­pect­ed de­bate in Par­lia­ment to­day, Scot­land has ar­gued that de­spite amend­ments made by Gov­ern­ment, the leg­is­la­tion still re­quires a three-fifths ma­jor­i­ty be­cause sev­er­al pro­vi­sions in­fringe on cit­i­zens’ con­sti­tu­tion­al rights.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Scot­land said: “This in­car­na­tion of this op­pres­sive leg­is­la­tion is more egre­gious and se­ri­ous than the one that was pre­vi­ous­ly re­ject­ed. It re­quires, to my hum­ble mind, a three-fifths par­lia­men­tary ma­jor­i­ty, and I can flag four ar­eas of con­sti­tu­tion­al in­fringe­ments.

“One, the free­dom of move­ment, where a per­son’s move­ments will be re­strict­ed. Two, war­rant­less search­es. Three, cor­don­ing off ar­eas with­out a ju­di­cial or­der. And four, cur­few. Those are just four in­stances where you see that it puts the Bill in­to a cat­e­go­ry that re­quires a con­sti­tu­tion­al ma­jor­i­ty.”

The pre­vi­ous ZOSO Bill ex­press­ly in­voked Sec­tion 13 of the Con­sti­tu­tion, al­low­ing it to op­er­ate notwith­stand­ing cer­tain fun­da­men­tal rights pro­tect­ed un­der Sec­tions 4 and 5. That pro­vi­sion has been re­moved from the new bill, which Gov­ern­ment in­tends to pass with a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty.

Scot­land al­so ques­tioned the lim­it­ed time af­ford­ed to the Op­po­si­tion to scru­ti­nise the leg­is­la­tion be­fore to­day’s de­bate.

“You would think, how­ev­er, that a bill of this mag­ni­tude, with such far-reach­ing con­se­quences, would have been giv­en more than 48 hours for prepa­ra­tion, but it is what it is,” he said.

The new leg­is­la­tion con­tains sev­er­al sig­nif­i­cant changes from the failed ZOSO Bill, in­clud­ing a two-year sun­set clause and trans­fer of the au­thor­i­ty to de­clare a closed area to the Pres­i­dent.

How­ev­er, once an area is de­clared closed, re­stric­tions may be im­posed on peo­ple en­ter­ing or leav­ing with­out a per­mit. Po­lice would al­so be em­pow­ered to con­duct war­rant­less search­es where there is rea­son­able sus­pi­cion that an of­fence is be­ing, has been, or is about to be com­mit­ted.

The Pres­i­dent would al­so have the pow­er to im­pose cur­fews. Un­like the pre­vi­ous bill, which ex­press­ly lim­it­ed cur­fews to 72 hours, the new leg­is­la­tion does not spec­i­fy a max­i­mum du­ra­tion.

Mal­abar/Mau­si­ca MP Do­minic Ro­main de­scribed the leg­is­la­tion as “whol­ly ob­jec­tion­able.”

Re­spond­ing via What­sApp, Ro­main said: “Some of the main pro­vi­sions are tan­ta­mount to a state of emer­gency on steroids. Search­es with­out war­rants, ar­bi­trary im­po­si­tion of cur­fews, re­stric­tions on free­dom of move­ment with the re­quire­ment of per­mits to leave your premis­es.”

He al­so took is­sue with Clause 18, which cre­ates an of­fence for threat­en­ing, as­sault­ing, ob­struct­ing or hin­der­ing a po­lice of­fi­cer, De­fence Force mem­ber, or any oth­er per­son per­form­ing du­ties un­der the pro­posed act.

“Clause 18 is a recipe for dis­as­ter, es­pe­cial­ly where the con­duct of the po­lice is like­ly to ag­gra­vate a sit­u­a­tion that could re­sult in law-abid­ing cit­i­zens in­ad­ver­tent­ly com­mit­ting one or more of the list­ed of­fences,” Ro­main said.

“Just as with the stand your ground leg­is­la­tion, this bill re­quired na­tion­al con­sul­ta­tion so that cit­i­zens could lend their voic­es to its con­struc­tion rather than have it foist­ed up­on them.”

Laven­tille East/Mor­vant MP Chris­t­ian Birch­wood said the Op­po­si­tion recog­nised the se­ri­ous­ness of the crime sit­u­a­tion and the need for de­ci­sive ac­tion by the Gov­ern­ment. How­ev­er, he said the pow­ers pro­posed un­der the leg­is­la­tion re­quired care­ful scruti­ny and the Op­po­si­tion had con­cerns about both the sun­set clause and re­duced par­lia­men­tary thresh­old re­quired for pas­sage.

“When­ev­er ex­tra­or­di­nary pow­ers are be­ing pro­posed, par­tic­u­lar­ly pow­ers that can sig­nif­i­cant­ly af­fect cit­i­zens and com­mu­ni­ties, the safe­guards, over­sight and ac­count­abil­i­ty sur­round­ing those pow­ers must be care­ful­ly ex­am­ined,” Birch­wood said.

He al­so ex­pressed con­cern over the re­duced em­pha­sis on so­cial in­ter­ven­tion in the new leg­is­la­tion.

“Se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures are im­por­tant, but sus­tain­able crime re­duc­tion re­quires more than en­force­ment alone. Com­mu­ni­ties need safe­ty as well as mean­ing­ful in­vest­ment and in­ter­ven­tion, and the Op­po­si­tion will speak more specif­i­cal­ly to that bal­ance when the bill comes be­fore the House.”

The pre­vi­ous ZOSO Bill es­tab­lished a So­cial Trans­for­ma­tion Com­mit­tee re­spon­si­ble for as­sess­ing con­di­tions in des­ig­nat­ed com­mu­ni­ties and de­vel­op­ing in­ter­ven­tions in ar­eas such as hous­ing, health, ed­u­ca­tion, in­fra­struc­ture and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment. There is no equiv­a­lent com­mit­tee or de­tailed so­cial trans­for­ma­tion pro­gramme in the new bill.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West MP Stu­art Young ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of mis­lead­ing the pub­lic over her claim that of­fi­cers con­duct­ing spe­cial op­er­a­tions would be re­quired to use body-worn cam­eras.

In a so­cial me­dia post yes­ter­day, Young said: “As has be­come the norm, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has sought to mis­lead the pop­u­la­tion. The new Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill which they are hus­tling to de­bate ac­tu­al­ly states that po­lice and sol­diers shall, ‘AS FAR AS IS POS­SI­BLE HAV­ING RE­GARD TO AVAIL­ABLE RE­SOURCES’ use body-worn cam­eras.

“You don’t need to be a lawyer to see that is not manda­to­ry and once they say, ‘well none avail­able,’ that is the end of that. If a Prime Min­is­ter is will­ing to at­tempt to fool the pop­u­la­tion on some­thing that is so eas­i­ly shown to be a lie, what can she be trust­ed on?”

Dur­ing a state­ment in Par­lia­ment on Wednes­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said of­fi­cers op­er­at­ing with­in closed ar­eas “must use body-worn cam­eras.”

How­ev­er, the bill states that of­fi­cers shall, “as far as is pos­si­ble hav­ing re­gard to avail­able re­sources,” use the de­vices. That qual­i­fi­ca­tion is sim­i­lar to a pro­vi­sion con­tained in the pre­vi­ous ZOSO Bill.

The new leg­is­la­tion al­so out­lines pro­to­cols gov­ern­ing ac­cess to body-cam­era record­ings and iden­ti­fies sev­er­al over­sight and in­ves­tiga­tive agen­cies that must be grant­ed ac­cess for the per­for­mance of their du­ties.

Those agen­cies in­clude the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty, the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions and the Om­buds­man.

Al­so con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les and Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les mean­while said the par­ty’s po­si­tion would be ful­ly out­lined dur­ing the de­bate.