Diplomatic passport crackdown

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

The Gov­ern­ment has an­nounced a sweep­ing re­view of diplo­mat­ic pass­ports and is set to claim one be­long­ing to an­oth­er for­mer prime min­is­ter.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­firmed yes­ter­day that Dr Kei­th Row­ley will al­so be asked to sur­ren­der his diplo­mat­ic pass­port, af­ter the State found hun­dreds of peo­ple were hold­ing the doc­u­ments de­spite not meet­ing the re­quired cri­te­ria.

The an­nounce­ment came a day af­ter for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young said he was in­struct­ed to re­turn his diplo­mat­ic pass­port, mak­ing Row­ley the next high-pro­file fig­ure to be af­fect­ed as Gov­ern­ment moves to tight­en con­trol over one of the coun­try’s high­est-lev­el trav­el doc­u­ments.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the re­view was prompt­ed af­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go’s in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners raised con­cerns about the is­suance and pos­si­ble abuse of diplo­mat­ic pass­ports.

“The Gov­ern­ment was re­quest­ed by our for­eign coun­ter­parts to look in­to the is­suance and abuse of Trinidad and To­ba­go-is­sued diplo­mat­ic pass­ports,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

“Up­on in­ves­ti­ga­tion, it was re­vealed that 985 per­sons pos­sess diplo­mat­ic pass­ports de­spite most of these per­sons not meet­ing the cri­te­ria for hold­ing these pass­ports.”

She stressed that the ex­er­cise was not di­rect­ed at any one in­di­vid­ual but rep­re­sent­ed a broad ad­min­is­tra­tive over­haul.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said diplo­mat­ic pass­ports are in­tend­ed for those rep­re­sent­ing T&T at the high­est lev­els of the State.

“Diplo­mat­ic pass­ports sig­ni­fy that the hold­er rep­re­sents the State in­ter­na­tion­al­ly,” she said.

She ex­plained that some cur­rent hold­ers would in­stead re­ceive of­fi­cial pass­ports, oth­ers would re­vert to or­di­nary pass­ports, while a small­er num­ber would re­tain their diplo­mat­ic pass­ports be­cause they con­tin­ue to qual­i­fy.

“MP Young will there­fore re­ceive an of­fi­cial pass­port in­stead of a diplo­mat­ic pass­port,” she said.

“Some oth­er per­sons on the list will al­so re­ceive of­fi­cial pass­ports in­stead of diplo­mat­ic pass­ports, some will be re­moved en­tire­ly and giv­en or­di­nary pass­ports and a few will re­tain their diplo­mat­ic pass­ports.”

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions that the changes amount­ed to pun­ish­ment.

“This is not a down­grade or any in­di­ca­tion of wrong­do­ing by any­one who is be­ing af­fect­ed. It is sim­ply cor­rec­tive ac­tion be­ing tak­en,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

Asked whether Dr Row­ley would al­so lose his diplo­mat­ic pass­port, Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­firmed this.

“Bear­ers of diplo­mat­ic pass­ports are re­quired to re­turn them to the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs when their over­seas post­ing con­cludes, they re­tire, or they leave the qual­i­fy­ing po­lit­i­cal of­fice,” the PM said.

“He (Row­ley) is re­tired and he is not rep­re­sent­ing the coun­try in an of­fi­cial ca­pac­i­ty. There­fore, he should not be in pos­ses­sion of a diplo­mat­ic pass­port.”

She said of­fi­cials from the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs would con­tact the for­mer prime min­is­ter on the mat­ter.

“I am ad­vised that min­istry per­son­nel will con­tact him in due course and that he will be giv­en an of­fi­cial pass­port in­stead of the diplo­mat­ic pass­port.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added that while an of­fi­cial pass­port car­ries sev­er­al trav­el con­ve­niences, it does not pro­vide the pro­tec­tions as­so­ci­at­ed with diplo­mat­ic sta­tus.

“He will still have many of the ben­e­fits and priv­i­leges af­ford­ed to hold­ers of diplo­mat­ic pass­ports but will not be cov­ered by diplo­mat­ic pass­port im­mu­ni­ties.”

The Prime Min­is­ter sought to clar­i­fy any mis­con­cep­tions sur­round­ing diplo­mat­ic pass­ports.

She said both diplo­mat­ic and of­fi­cial pass­ports pro­vide cer­tain trav­el ben­e­fits, but diplo­mat­ic im­mu­ni­ty is not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly at­tached to the doc­u­ment it­self.

“Both the diplo­mat­ic and of­fi­cial pass­ports con­fer spe­cial ben­e­fits, how­ev­er, im­mu­ni­ty on­ly ap­plies to diplo­mat­ic pass­port hold­ers and is strict­ly grant­ed by the re­ceiv­ing coun­try based on of­fi­cial Vi­en­na Con­ven­tion ac­cred­i­ta­tion.”

That means diplo­mat­ic im­mu­ni­ty gen­er­al­ly ex­ists on­ly where a hold­er has been for­mal­ly ac­cred­it­ed by the re­ceiv­ing State for of­fi­cial diplo­mat­ic du­ties, she not­ed.

Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jear­lean John sought to min­imise the sig­nif­i­cance of the con­tro­ver­sy yes­ter­day, say­ing she did not un­der­stand the po­lit­i­cal at­ten­tion sur­round­ing the is­sue.

“This time I did take a diplo­mat­ic pass­port. You know when I was min­is­ter, at first, I nev­er did that. My pass­port was just as good,” she said.

“What is the big deal? I mean, I don’t know. I don’t go to diplo­mat­ic lounges and so on. You just want a plane to take you from here to there safe­ly and you go through im­mi­gra­tion and cus­toms and that’s it. I don’t see re­al­ly what is the big deal.”

John al­so dis­missed Young’s crit­i­cism of the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion.

“Stu­art Young is a free per­son in a free coun­try. He has a right to talk about what he wants to talk about. So these things are not things that both­er me.”

While Young on Thurs­day said he did not ask for a diplo­mat­ic pass­port, Guardian Me­dia was re­li­ably in­formed that on April 30, 2025, just two days af­ter the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment lost the gen­er­al elec­tion and one day be­fore Per­sad-Bisses­sar was sworn in as Prime Min­is­ter, a state of­fi­cial re­quest­ed that a let­ter be pre­pared to fa­cil­i­tate Young’s ap­pli­ca­tion for a diplo­mat­ic pass­port as a for­mer prime min­is­ter.

Guardian Me­dia was told the of­fi­cial re­quest­ed that the let­ter be pre­pared the same day for col­lec­tion.

The in­for­ma­tion ap­pears to con­tra­dict Young’s pub­lic as­ser­tion that he had not sought the doc­u­ment.

On Thurs­day, Young said he had been asked to sur­ren­der the diplo­mat­ic pass­port but re­quest­ed that the Gov­ern­ment first make the re­quest for­mal­ly in writ­ing.

Guardian Me­dia al­so pre­vi­ous­ly re­port­ed that Young re­mained in pos­ses­sion of the pass­port pend­ing that writ­ten re­quest.

The lat­est de­vel­op­ment marks the sec­ond time the new ad­min­is­tra­tion has moved to re­move an en­ti­tle­ment pre­vi­ous­ly af­ford­ed to Young, af­ter Gov­ern­ment ear­li­er brought leg­isla­tive amend­ments to en­sure he would not re­ceive a prime min­is­te­r­i­al pen­sion af­ter hold­ing the of­fice for around 42 days.

A diplo­mat­ic pass­port is the high­est cat­e­go­ry of trav­el doc­u­ment is­sued by the State and sig­ni­fies that its hold­er rep­re­sents T&T at the high­est diplo­mat­ic or gov­ern­men­tal lev­el.

It is gen­er­al­ly is­sued to the Pres­i­dent, Prime Min­is­ter, Cab­i­net Min­is­ters, the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, the Chief Jus­tice, ac­cred­it­ed am­bas­sadors, high com­mis­sion­ers, ca­reer for­eign ser­vice of­fi­cers and, in cer­tain cir­cum­stances, el­i­gi­ble spous­es ac­com­pa­ny­ing diplo­mats on long-term over­seas post­ings.

Its pri­ma­ry pur­pose is to fa­cil­i­tate of­fi­cial diplo­mat­ic en­gage­ment, in­clud­ing in­ter­na­tion­al ne­go­ti­a­tions, sum­mits and bi­lat­er­al or mul­ti­lat­er­al meet­ings.

When used for of­fi­cial diplo­mat­ic du­ties, the pass­port serves as the mech­a­nism through which the hold­er may be ac­cord­ed diplo­mat­ic priv­i­leges and im­mu­ni­ties un­der the Vi­en­na Con­ven­tion on Diplo­mat­ic Re­la­tions, sub­ject to ac­cred­i­ta­tion by the re­ceiv­ing coun­try. Hold­ers may al­so ben­e­fit from ex­pe­dit­ed im­mi­gra­tion pro­cess­ing and broad­er visa ex­emp­tions in some ju­ris­dic­tions.

An of­fi­cial pass­port, some­times re­ferred to as a ser­vice pass­port, is in­tend­ed for gov­ern­ment per­son­nel trav­el­ling over­seas on au­tho­rised state busi­ness but who do not hold diplo­mat­ic sta­tus.

Re­cip­i­ents can in­clude Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment who are not Cab­i­net Min­is­ters, Per­ma­nent Sec­re­taries, se­nior pub­lic ser­vants, mil­i­tary of­fi­cers, se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials, ju­di­cial of­fi­cers and tech­ni­cal spe­cial­ists rep­re­sent­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go at re­gion­al or in­ter­na­tion­al meet­ings.

The Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) has con­demned the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to re­voke for­mer prime min­is­ter Young’s diplo­mat­ic pass­port, de­scrib­ing it as po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, PNM chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les ac­cused the Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion of pur­su­ing “re­venge, pet­ti­ness” and po­lit­i­cal vic­tim­i­sa­tion in­stead of gov­ern­ing the coun­try.

Gon­za­les ar­gued that Young’s ser­vice as prime min­is­ter could not be erased and said with­draw­ing his diplo­mat­ic pass­port would not di­min­ish his lega­cy. He main­tained the Op­po­si­tion re­mained un­de­terred, in­sist­ing the par­ty would con­tin­ue de­fend­ing T&T and would ul­ti­mate­ly re­turn to gov­ern­ment through the sup­port of vot­ers.