Chamber warns Govt: ZOSOs could impact commercial activity

GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­[email protected]

As the Gov­ern­ment moves to in­tro­duce Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSOs) af­ter the State of Emer­gency ends on Jan­u­ary 31, both the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert are urg­ing cau­tion, warn­ing that the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion can dis­rupt eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly erod­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al rights.

The T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce has called for care­ful, time-bound im­ple­men­ta­tion of any ex­tra­or­di­nary se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures, while re­tired Lieu­tenant Com­man­der Nor­man Din­di­al, for­mer Chief Staff Of­fi­cer Op­er­a­tions at the T&T De­fence Force, cau­tioned that the bill risks ex­ec­u­tive over­reach and the cre­ation of a po­lice state.

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, the cham­ber ac­knowl­edged the Gov­ern­ment’s in­ten­tion to utilise ZOSOs to ad­dress se­ri­ous crime, re­it­er­at­ing that pub­lic safe­ty is crit­i­cal to na­tion­al sta­bil­i­ty and eco­nom­ic re­silience.

How­ev­er, it stressed that ex­tra­or­di­nary se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures must be clear­ly de­fined, lim­it­ed in du­ra­tion and em­bed­ded with­in a broad­er, sus­tain­able strat­e­gy that sup­ports so­cial sta­bil­i­ty, in­vestor con­fi­dence and busi­ness con­ti­nu­ity.

From the pri­vate sec­tor’s per­spec­tive, the cham­ber said its pri­ma­ry con­cern is the po­ten­tial im­pact of ZOSO-re­lat­ed mea­sures on nor­mal com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ty.

It said re­stric­tions on move­ment, op­er­at­ing hours or ac­cess to com­mu­ni­ties—if not clear­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ed and prop­er­ly man­aged—could dis­rupt work­force mo­bil­i­ty, cus­tomer ac­cess, sup­ply chains and cash flow, par­tic­u­lar­ly for small and medi­um-sized en­ter­pris­es.

The cham­ber em­pha­sised the need for clear pro­to­cols, ad­vance no­tice and on­go­ing en­gage­ment with af­fect­ed busi­ness­es to min­imise dis­rup­tion and pre­serve con­fi­dence in the op­er­at­ing en­vi­ron­ment.

While the busi­ness sec­tor fo­cused on eco­nom­ic im­pli­ca­tions, Din­di­al warned that the bill pos­es far big­ger con­sti­tu­tion­al and de­mo­c­ra­t­ic risks.

Ac­cord­ing to Din­di­al, who is al­so the leader of the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance, the leg­is­la­tion grants the Prime Min­is­ter sweep­ing au­thor­i­ty to de­clare des­ig­nat­ed ar­eas as “Spe­cial Zones,” with­in which a joint force of po­lice and mil­i­tary per­son­nel would be em­pow­ered to im­pose cur­fews, con­duct search­es with­out war­rants, seize prop­er­ty and de­tain in­di­vid­u­als on the ba­sis of “rea­son.”

“The bill’s pro­vi­sions, al­low­ing search with­out war­rant, cur­fews, and de­ten­tion with­out due process, con­tra­vene the Con­sti­tu­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, specif­i­cal­ly Sec­tions 4 and 5, which pro­tect the right to lib­er­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of the per­son. Fur­ther­more, grant­i­ng the Prime Min­is­ter, as head of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, sweep­ing pow­ers to de­clare zones and im­pose re­stric­tions, un­der­mines the prin­ci­ples of democ­ra­cy and the rule of law,” he out­lined.

Din­di­al al­so said the move by­pass­es fun­da­men­tal safe­guards of crim­i­nal law.

Al­though pro­ce­dur­al safe­guards are out­lined, Din­di­al said the ab­sence of ro­bust over­sight mech­a­nisms, manda­to­ry body cam­eras and clear ac­count­abil­i­ty struc­tures height­ens the risk of hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions and the mil­i­tari­sa­tion of civil­ian spaces.

He al­so cau­tioned that la­belling com­mu­ni­ties as “Spe­cial Zones” could stig­ma­tise res­i­dents and dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly af­fect mar­gin­alised pop­u­la­tions.