Scotland: PNM will not support further extension of SoE

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Port-of-Spain South MP Kei­th Scot­land says the Op­po­si­tion will not sup­port any at­tempt by the Gov­ern­ment to fur­ther ex­tend the State of Emer­gency (SoE) be­yond Sep­tem­ber 17, main­tain­ing that its po­si­tion is ground­ed in an as­sess­ment of the mea­sure’s ef­fec­tive­ness and a com­mit­ment to prin­ci­ple.

Scot­land made the po­si­tion clear when asked whether the Op­po­si­tion ex­pect­ed the Gov­ern­ment to al­low the SoE to ex­pire rather than seek an­oth­er ex­ten­sion based on the da­ta avail­able at the end of the cur­rent pe­ri­od.

Un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion, the Gov­ern­ment can ex­tend a SoE for up to six months us­ing its sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. How­ev­er, any ex­ten­sion be­yond six months re­quires a three-fifths spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty in both the House and Sen­ate. Al­ter­na­tive­ly, the Gov­ern­ment may al­low the cur­rent SoE to ex­pire and ad­vise the Pres­i­dent to pro­claim a new one, ef­fec­tive­ly re­set­ting the con­sti­tu­tion­al time­line.

Scot­land said the Op­po­si­tion had al­ready re­viewed the SoE’s ef­fec­tive­ness and dis­cussed the is­sue with­in its par­lia­men­tary cau­cus.

“At the time of the last ex­ten­sion, we did not sup­port it in Par­lia­ment. Noth­ing has changed. In fact, things have got­ten worse as it per­tains to civ­il lib­er­ties, and in those cir­cum­stances, we are un­able to ac­qui­esce to any fur­ther ex­ten­sion of the State of Emer­gency,” he said.

He not­ed that any fur­ther ex­ten­sion be­yond the con­sti­tu­tion­al lim­it would re­quire the Op­po­si­tion’s sup­port and said the par­ty would stand by its prin­ci­ples.

“We will stand on prin­ci­ple. We will give rea­sons for non-sup­port, and it won’t be capri­cious,” he said.

How­ev­er, he al­so called for greater trans­paren­cy and in­de­pen­dent ver­i­fi­ca­tion of Gov­ern­ment claims that crime and mur­ders have de­clined un­der the SoE.

Ques­tion­ing whether cit­i­zens gen­uine­ly felt a sense of progress fol­low­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s 64th In­de­pen­dence an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions, he ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of re­ly­ing on broad state­ments and so­cial me­dia mes­sag­ing with­out pro­vid­ing suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence.

“We have just ex­pe­ri­enced our 64th In­de­pen­dence an­niver­sary. How do we feel? Did it leave you feel­ing you are part of Trinidad and To­ba­go?” he asked.

Scot­land al­so chal­lenged claims made by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in her In­de­pen­dence Day mes­sage that 400 lives had been saved and that crime was de­clin­ing.

“The Prime Min­is­ter, in her In­de­pen­dence Day mes­sage, said 400 lives were saved and crime is down. Where are the de­tailed sta­tis­tics that show what is be­ing said is matched by facts?” he asked.

“Where is the in­de­pen­dent ver­i­fi­ca­tion?”

He said the Op­po­si­tion re­mained con­cerned about the cred­i­bil­i­ty and ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty of crime da­ta.

“We are con­cerned about cred­i­bil­i­ty and ac­cess to crime sta­tis­tics. We should not have to piece to­geth­er what is go­ing on be­cause the words com­ing out of this Gov­ern­ment can­not be trust­ed when broad pro­nounce­ments are made in a vac­u­um,” he said, urg­ing Gov­ern­ment to pub­lish the method­ol­o­gy used to sup­port the Prime Min­is­ter’s claim 400 lives had been saved.

Scot­land al­so ques­tioned the ef­fec­tive­ness of the SoE, which was in­tro­duced to ad­dress es­ca­lat­ing gang vi­o­lence. He ar­gued that the Gov­ern­ment must demon­strate that the ex­tra­or­di­nary pow­ers grant­ed un­der the mea­sure are be­ing used ef­fec­tive­ly for that pur­pose.

“The SoE was ini­tial­ly pro­claimed due to the pro­lif­er­a­tion of gang vi­o­lence,” he said, while warn­ing against its use against in­di­vid­u­als who mere­ly op­pose Gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy.

The Op­po­si­tion MP fur­ther queried the num­ber of Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) is­sued un­der the SoE, say­ing con­flict­ing fig­ures had emerged pub­licly.

Scot­land said the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty had a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­vide ac­cu­rate in­for­ma­tion and ques­tioned why there was no pub­licly ac­ces­si­ble data­base track­ing PDOs.

He al­so called for in­for­ma­tion on how many de­tainees had been charged and how many cas­es had pro­gressed to pros­e­cu­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to fig­ures cit­ed by Scot­land, 373 days of the Gov­ern­ment’s tenure up to Au­gust 2026 had been spent un­der a SoE. He ques­tioned whether the mea­sure had there­fore lost its ex­cep­tion­al char­ac­ter.

“Does it mean the SoE has lost its sting? Is it an ex­cep­tion­al or­der?” he asked.

“It is now a cen­tral plank of the Gov­ern­ment, while the econ­o­my goes down the drain, and we con­tin­ue to live un­der a sys­tem of ex­tra­or­di­nary mea­sures.”

Scot­land main­tained that a SoE should not be­come the Gov­ern­ment’s pri­ma­ry crime-fight­ing tool.

While ex­press­ing sup­port for the po­lice and their ef­forts to com­bat crime, he said Gov­ern­ment must al­so pro­vide clear and ver­i­fi­able in­for­ma­tion to the pub­lic.

“We sup­port the po­lice in all their ef­forts to curb crime, but we de­mand ac­count­abil­i­ty si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly,” he said.

Al­so con­tact­ed on the is­sue of an ex­ten­sion of the SoE yes­ter­day, In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Dr Mar­lene Attzs said it was too ear­ly to de­ter­mine whether she would sup­port an­oth­er ex­ten­sion. She not­ed that sev­er­al re­cent na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ini­tia­tives should first be as­sessed.

“At this stage, I would pre­fer not to spec­u­late or have a po­si­tion on whether or not I would sup­port any fur­ther ex­ten­sion of the SoE,” Attzs told Guardian Me­dia.

“There have been a num­ber of de­vel­op­ments and ini­tia­tives in the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty space, in­clud­ing the re­cent in­tro­duc­tion of the joint po­lice-army posts, and I think it is im­por­tant to al­low some time to as­sess these mea­sures.”

Attzs said any de­ci­sion would de­pend on the ev­i­dence and cir­cum­stances pre­sent­ed if the Gov­ern­ment for­mal­ly sought an­oth­er ex­ten­sion.

“If and when a fur­ther ex­ten­sion of the SoE is for­mal­ly pro­posed, I would con­sid­er the case pre­sent­ed, the avail­able ev­i­dence and the cir­cum­stances at that time be­fore de­ter­min­ing a po­si­tion,” she said.