Scotland: Special Operations Bill a ‘sprawling assault’ on citizens’ rights

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

Port-of-Spain South MP Kei­th Scot­land has brand­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill a “sprawl­ing as­sault” on cit­i­zens’ con­sti­tu­tion­al rights, warn­ing that it could trans­form Trinidad and To­ba­go in­to a “po­lice state” and sub­ject peo­ple liv­ing in crime-af­fect­ed com­mu­ni­ties to a less­er stan­dard of free­dom.

Scot­land made the re­marks dur­ing de­bate on the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill, 2026, in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day, ac­cus­ing the Gov­ern­ment of ex­ploit­ing pub­lic fears about crime to jus­ti­fy weak­en­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al safe­guards.

“This leg­is­la­tion is a sprawl­ing as­sault on sev­er­al rights of the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Scot­land said.

“What this ex­ec­u­tive has done is in­voke fear to weak­en con­sti­tu­tion­al safe­guards.”

He ar­gued that ex­ist­ing laws, in­clud­ing the An­ti-Gang Act, Firearms Act and Of­fences Against the Per­son Act, al­ready pro­vide au­thor­i­ties with the tools need­ed to com­bat crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

While re­it­er­at­ing the Op­po­si­tion’s sup­port for in­tel­li­gence-led polic­ing, firearm in­ter­dic­tion and the dis­man­tling of crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tions, Scot­land said it could not sup­port what he de­scribed as the grad­ual ero­sion of fun­da­men­tal rights.

“We sup­port the Po­lice Ser­vice of Trinidad and To­ba­go. We sup­port in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tions and the in­ter­dic­tion of firearms and the dis­man­tling of crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tions,” he said.

“What we do not sup­port, how­ev­er, is the dis­man­tling, piece by piece, of our fun­da­men­tal rights and the way of life in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Scot­land took par­tic­u­lar is­sue with the bill’s pro­vi­sion cre­at­ing sev­en polic­ing dis­tricts across Trinidad and To­ba­go, each head­ed by a Head of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions ap­point­ed by the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice.

“You are turn­ing this coun­try in­to a po­lice state,” he charged.

He al­so is­sued a warn­ing to cit­i­zens about the con­cen­tra­tion of pow­ers in the hands of se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go, do not have any beef with any se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers, you know. Be care­ful,” Scot­land said, ques­tion­ing whether such ex­ten­sive au­thor­i­ty should be vest­ed in po­lice of­fi­cers over­see­ing en­tire dis­tricts.

Un­der the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion, ar­eas with­in those dis­tricts may be des­ig­nat­ed as closed ar­eas, al­low­ing for mea­sures such as cur­fews, re­stric­tions on move­ment, war­rant­less search­es, seizure of prop­er­ty and de­ten­tion.

Scot­land ar­gued that res­i­dents in those com­mu­ni­ties could ef­fec­tive­ly find them­selves liv­ing un­der emer­gency-style re­stric­tions with­out the con­sti­tu­tion­al safe­guards nor­mal­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with a state of emer­gency.

“It’s like you’re in jail, but you’re not in jail,” he said.

He fur­ther con­tend­ed that the bill could cre­ate in­equal­i­ty based on where peo­ple live, not­ing that com­mu­ni­ties most like­ly to be des­ig­nat­ed closed ar­eas are al­ready dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed and heav­i­ly po­liced.

“The Con­sti­tu­tion pro­tects and does not di­min­ish be­cause of a per­son’s ge­o­graph­i­cal ad­dress,” he said.

Ref­er­enc­ing com­mu­ni­ties such as Sea Lots and St James, Scot­land said res­i­dents sim­ply want­ed the free­dom to work and send their chil­dren to school with­out fac­ing ad­di­tion­al re­stric­tions be­cause of their ad­dress.

He was al­so sharply crit­i­cal of the ab­sence of so­cial in­ter­ven­tion mea­sures that had formed part of the pre­vi­ous Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) leg­is­la­tion.

“Where are the so­cial in­ter­ven­tions in this bill?” he asked.

“Lock them up, cor­don them off, with­out any con­sid­er­a­tion for so­cial ram­i­fi­ca­tions.”

Scot­land not­ed that closed ar­eas would in­clude homes, schools, gro­cery stores, phar­ma­cies, busi­ness­es and places of wor­ship. He warned that move­ment re­stric­tions could re­sult in work­ers los­ing wages, stu­dents miss­ing ex­am­i­na­tions and pa­tients be­ing un­able to ac­cess med­ical treat­ment.

The MP al­so chal­lenged the Gov­ern­ment’s claim that body-worn cam­eras would be manda­to­ry dur­ing spe­cial op­er­a­tions.

The bill states that po­lice of­fi­cers and De­fence Force per­son­nel shall, “as far as is pos­si­ble, hav­ing re­gard to the avail­able re­sources,” use body-worn cam­eras dur­ing spe­cial op­er­a­tions con­duct­ed in closed ar­eas.

Scot­land ar­gued that the qual­i­fy­ing lan­guage sig­nif­i­cant­ly un­der­mined the re­quire­ment.

“Manda­to­ry means it must be done,” he said.

“What does that do? It wa­ters down manda­to­ry.”

He main­tained that of­fi­cers could jus­ti­fy the ab­sence of footage by claim­ing equip­ment or re­sources were un­avail­able.

“Body cam­eras ought to have been made manda­to­ry. But it is cer­tain­ly not in this bill,” Scot­land said.

Scot­land in­sist­ed that ef­fec­tive polic­ing and the pro­tec­tion of con­sti­tu­tion­al rights should not be treat­ed as com­pet­ing ob­jec­tives, ar­gu­ing that fun­da­men­tal free­doms be­come most im­por­tant when gov­ern­ments face pres­sure to take ex­tra­or­di­nary mea­sures.

Clos­ing his con­tri­bu­tion, he de­clared that the Op­po­si­tion would not sup­port the leg­is­la­tion.

“We say no to tyran­ny. We say no to un­con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty. We say no to hubris,” Scot­land said.

“And we say no to ZOSO.”