AG: No new laws needed for special operations rollout

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie says con­sul­ta­tions be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) are con­tin­u­ing to ad­dress mi­nor op­er­a­tional is­sues that have emerged ahead of the full im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Act.

How­ev­er, he dis­missed sug­ges­tions that ad­di­tion­al leg­is­la­tion may be re­quired, in­sist­ing the con­cerns are be­ing re­solved as they arise.

“There is on­go­ing con­sul­ta­tion. The chal­lenges are rel­a­tive­ly mi­nor op­er­a­tional is­sues which are be­ing ad­dressed as we speak,” the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al told Guardian Me­dia via What­sApp last week.

Asked whether sup­port­ing leg­is­la­tion might be need­ed to deal with the is­sues, Je­re­mie was em­phat­ic.

“Def­i­nite­ly not,” he said.

His com­ments came a day af­ter the head of the TTPS Le­gal Unit, ASP Ram­dath Phillip, ac­knowl­edged dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing that the po­lice ser­vice was work­ing through leg­isla­tive chal­lenges re­lat­ed to the act.

“We have a sit­u­a­tion where a num­ber of is­sues have arisen in re­la­tion to the act and we are work­ing on them for a smooth roll­out, should the act be called up­on or should we as the po­lice be called up­on to in­sti­tute the piece of leg­is­la­tion,” Phillip said.

Nei­ther Phillip nor Je­re­mie, how­ev­er, dis­closed the spe­cif­ic is­sues that have arisen, leav­ing unan­swered ques­tions about the na­ture of the chal­lenges and whether they could af­fect the act’s im­ple­men­ta­tion.

Guardian Me­dia al­so con­tact­ed Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin for de­tails on the is­sues de­lay­ing the law’s roll­out, but has yet to get a re­sponse.

The Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Act was pro­claimed by Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo on Oc­to­ber 6 and re­mains in force for a two-year pe­ri­od.

The leg­is­la­tion fol­lowed a con­tentious pas­sage through Par­lia­ment. While it se­cured a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, the bill faced a dead­lock in the Sen­ate, where Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tors were split 15-15.

Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark ul­ti­mate­ly ex­er­cised his cast­ing vote to break the tie, re­sult­ing in the bill’s pas­sage by a 16-15 mar­gin.

The leg­is­la­tion di­vides Trinidad and To­ba­go in­to sev­en des­ig­nat­ed polic­ing dis­tricts and em­pow­ers the TTPS, and where nec­es­sary the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force, to con­duct spe­cial op­er­a­tions with­in any of those dis­tricts.

Such op­er­a­tions may in­clude the clo­sure or cor­don­ing off of ar­eas through bar­ri­ers, road­blocks and oth­er mea­sures. Once an area is closed, re­stric­tions may be im­posed on the move­ment of per­sons en­ter­ing or leav­ing the des­ig­nat­ed zone.

The leg­is­la­tion is de­signed to al­low law en­force­ment to tar­get spe­cif­ic ar­eas rather than im­pose na­tion­wide re­stric­tions, dis­tin­guish­ing it from the re­cent­ly end­ed State of Emer­gency, which ap­plied across the coun­try.