Govt open to ZOSOS amendments but rules out SoE extension

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Gov­ern­ment may con­sid­er amend­ments from sen­a­tors to the con­tro­ver­sial Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSOS) Bill when Sen­ate de­bate re­sumes to­mor­row, but no con­sid­er­a­tion will be giv­en to ex­tend­ing the State of Emer­gency.

A se­nior gov­ern­ment min­is­ter said yes­ter­day that the Sen­ate will con­tin­ue dis­cus­sions on the Law Re­form (Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions) (Spe­cial Se­cu­ri­ty and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Mea­sures) Bill, 2026, which al­lows the Prime Min­is­ter — in con­sul­ta­tion with the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er and Chief of De­fence Staff — to de­clare cer­tain ar­eas in Trinidad and To­ba­go as spe­cial zones for up to six months. With­in these ar­eas, joint se­cu­ri­ty forces would have search-and-seizure pow­ers with­out a war­rant and could in­sti­tute 24-hour cor­dons and 72-hour cur­fews.

The bill, which re­quires a spe­cial three-fifths ma­jor­i­ty to pass, was ap­proved by the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives two weeks ago. The Gov­ern­ment had suf­fi­cient votes in the House to pass it with­out Op­po­si­tion PNM sup­port. How­ev­er, in the Sen­ate, where the Gov­ern­ment holds 16 seats, it needs the sup­port of at least four more sen­a­tors from the In­de­pen­dent or Op­po­si­tion bench­es to se­cure pas­sage. Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tors have crit­i­cized the bill, while In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors have raised con­cerns.

So far, 24 sen­a­tors have spo­ken over three days of de­bate, in­clud­ing most In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors (in­clud­ing two tem­po­rary sen­a­tors), most Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tors (in­clud­ing one tem­po­rary sen­a­tor), and nine Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tors (in­clud­ing one tem­po­rary sen­a­tor).

De­bate re­sumes to­mor­row fol­low­ing the ab­sence last week of At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie, who pi­lot­ed the bill but sub­se­quent­ly left Trinidad and To­ba­go on of­fi­cial busi­ness. He is ex­pect­ed to re­turn this week.

Re­gard­ing pos­si­ble amend­ments, a Gov­ern­ment min­is­ter told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that de­bate is on­go­ing and point­ed to pre­vi­ous Gov­ern­ment state­ments on the mat­ter, in­clud­ing com­ments from De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge in last Wednes­day’s Sen­ate ses­sion.

Re­ply­ing to tem­po­rary In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Josh Dray­ton, Sturge said: “In essence, Sen­a­tor Dray­ton in­di­cat­ed he would be mind­ed to sup­port the bill if con­sid­er­a­tion were giv­en to a sun­set clause.

“Sec­tion 28 of the bill pro­vides that once passed, the Act shall be re­viewed by a com­mit­tee of both Hous­es of Par­lia­ment ap­point­ed for that pur­pose. I hope this sat­is­fies him. If not, we look for­ward to see­ing a pro­posed amend­ment to Sec­tion 28 or a re­draft.

“The bill al­so pro­vides for mon­i­tor­ing the ef­fi­ca­cy of its pro­vi­sions and how they op­er­ate in prac­tice. Based on what the com­mit­tee finds dur­ing its re­view of ZOSO op­er­a­tions, a de­ci­sion can be tak­en. The oth­er parts of Sen­a­tor Dray­ton’s con­tri­bu­tion were very in­struc­tive and in­sight­ful, and I think we are all the bet­ter for them.”

Dray­ton had ex­pressed sup­port for the bill, with the caveat that it in­clude a sun­set clause, em­pha­siz­ing that a sun­set clause — which sets an au­to­mat­ic ex­piry date — is dif­fer­ent from a re­view.

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Fran­cis Lewis al­so sug­gest­ed a sun­set clause and called on the Gov­ern­ment to ex­tend the State of Emer­gency (SOE) while putting ZOSOs on hold to ad­dress con­cerns.

How­ev­er, a Gov­ern­ment min­is­ter yes­ter­day re­it­er­at­ed that there is no rea­son to con­tin­ue the SOE, not­ing that the threats that ini­tial­ly prompt­ed it have been ad­dressed.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Je­re­mie is ex­pect­ed to wind up de­bate to­mor­row af­ter con­tri­bu­tions from sen­a­tors across the Gov­ern­ment, In­de­pen­dent, and Op­po­si­tion bench­es. Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tors Amery Browne and Fos­ter Cum­mings are among those yet to speak.