Lawyers: SOB must balance security, movement in communities

KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Le­gal prac­ti­tion­ers say the per­mit sys­tem un­der the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill, 2026, is an im­por­tant mech­a­nism for reg­u­lat­ing move­ment in com­mu­ni­ties de­clared “closed ar­eas,” but its prac­ti­cal im­ple­men­ta­tion will be crit­i­cal, par­tic­u­lar­ly in emer­gen­cies.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, South­ern As­sem­bly of Lawyers pres­i­dent Saira Lakhan said the per­mit sys­tem is an im­por­tant start­ing point be­cause a closed area was not in­tend­ed to be­come an un­re­strict­ed lock­down of an en­tire com­mu­ni­ty.

She said there was a le­git­i­mate se­cu­ri­ty ra­tio­nale for con­trol­ling move­ment in a des­ig­nat­ed area, but not­ed that these were res­i­den­tial com­mu­ni­ties where peo­ple still had jobs, chil­dren, med­ical ap­point­ments, el­der­ly rel­a­tives and fam­i­ly re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

“That is why I think the per­mit sys­tem is an ap­pro­pri­ate mech­a­nism. It al­lows the State to main­tain con­trol over move­ment with­out im­pos­ing an ab­solute pro­hi­bi­tion on per­sons en­ter­ing or leav­ing the area.”

The Bill lists spe­cif­ic cat­e­gories ex­empt from the per­mit re­quire­ment, in­clud­ing se­nior State of­fi­cials, judges, se­nior po­lice and De­fence Force of­fi­cials, and law en­force­ment mem­bers on du­ty.

Rel­a­tives and care­givers are not ex­press­ly list­ed among those ex­emp­tions.

“The prac­ti­cal im­ple­men­ta­tion will nev­er­the­less be im­por­tant. There should be clear and ac­ces­si­ble pro­ce­dures for med­ical emer­gen­cies, care­givers, health­care work­ers, es­sen­tial work­ers, vul­ner­a­ble per­sons and gen­uine fam­i­ly emer­gen­cies. There should al­so be an ef­fec­tive mech­a­nism for ob­tain­ing per­mis­sion out­side nor­mal work­ing hours,” Lakhan said.

Hu­man rights at­tor­ney Criston J Williams, man­ag­ing part­ner at Quan­tum Le­gal, said the leg­is­la­tion would give au­thor­i­ties sig­nif­i­cant pow­ers while hav­ing a di­rect im­pact on law-abid­ing res­i­dents.

“The Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions leg­is­la­tion re­places a na­tion­wide State of Emer­gency with tar­get­ed, area-based en­hanced polic­ing pow­ers. These pow­ers are sig­nif­i­cant. They in­clude cur­fews, re­stric­tions on move­ment, and search­es with­in de­fined dis­tricts. While they fall short of a State of Emer­gency, they will have a di­rect and dai­ly im­pact on law-abid­ing cit­i­zens liv­ing with­in those com­mu­ni­ties.”

Williams said con­sti­tu­tion­al rights re­mained in force, al­though they would be ex­er­cised in a more con­trolled en­vi­ron­ment.

He said re­stric­tions should ac­count for emer­gen­cies.

“Cur­fews, in par­tic­u­lar, are col­lec­tive in ef­fect. Every­one with­in the zone must com­ply. This places a clear du­ty on the State to en­sure that such mea­sures are pro­por­tion­ate, time-lim­it­ed, and re­spon­sive to re­al-life needs, in­clud­ing emer­gen­cies. Sys­tems al­low­ing res­i­dents to move when nec­es­sary must be clear, ac­ces­si­ble and work­able in prac­tice, not mere­ly set out on pa­per.”

Williams al­so stressed ac­count­abil­i­ty, in­clud­ing body-worn cam­eras.

“En­hanced pow­ers do not cre­ate a veil of se­cre­cy; they in­crease the oblig­a­tion for trans­paren­cy.”

For Lakhan, the ob­jec­tive should be a work­able bal­ance be­tween al­low­ing se­cu­ri­ty op­er­a­tions to con­trol move­ment and en­sur­ing that law-abid­ing res­i­dents can deal with cir­cum­stances re­quir­ing them to en­ter or leave a closed area.

The Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill, 2026, passed in the House short­ly af­ter mid­night on Sat­ur­day af­ter more than 13 hours of de­bate.

It pro­vides for re­stric­tions on en­ter­ing and leav­ing a closed area, cur­fews and, in spec­i­fied cir­cum­stances, war­rant­less search­es.

The Bill now goes to the Sen­ate.