Special Operations Act now in force

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

Akash.sama­[email protected]

The Gov­ern­ment can now legal­ly be­gin Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions across Trinidad and To­ba­go, af­ter Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo pro­claimed Oc­to­ber 6 as the date on which all sec­tions of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Act, 2026, came in­to op­er­a­tion.

The procla­ma­tion means the con­tro­ver­sial crime-fight­ing leg­is­la­tion, which cleared Par­lia­ment last month, is now ful­ly op­er­a­tional in law.

The Act di­vides the coun­try in­to sev­en polic­ing dis­tricts and al­lows spe­cif­ic lo­ca­tions to be de­clared “closed ar­eas.”

With­in those ar­eas, au­thor­i­ties can im­pose cur­fews, cor­dons and check­points, close roads, re­strict en­try and ex­it and con­duct war­rant­less search­es in spec­i­fied cir­cum­stances.

The leg­is­la­tion passed the House by a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty be­fore fac­ing a much tighter vote in the Sen­ate, where Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion forces dead­locked 15-15.

Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark then used his cast­ing vote to pass the Bill 16-15.

How­ev­er, ques­tions re­main about when the first Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions will be­gin and how some as­pects will work.

Guardian Me­dia asked Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day when Heads of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions will be ap­point­ed for the sev­en polic­ing dis­tricts.

The Prime Min­is­ter was al­so asked for clar­i­ty on the per­mit sys­tem for peo­ple en­ter­ing and leav­ing closed ar­eas, in­clud­ing how cit­i­zens will ap­ply and how per­mits will work when trav­el­ling be­tween closed and non-closed ar­eas.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar pre­vi­ous­ly as­sured law-abid­ing cit­i­zens that “every­thing will be put in place to en­sure min­i­mal in­con­ve­nience” dur­ing Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions. How­ev­er, de­tailed in­for­ma­tion on the per­mit ap­pli­ca­tion and ver­i­fi­ca­tion process has not yet been made pub­lic.

Guardian Me­dia al­so asked whether the Prime Min­is­ter re­mains com­mit­ted to her pre­vi­ous de­c­la­ra­tion that Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions would on­ly be con­duct­ed in Gov­ern­ment-con­trolled ar­eas and To­ba­go, or whether the mea­sures could now be ap­plied na­tion­wide.

Up to press time, Per­sad-Bisses­sar had not re­spond­ed to the ques­tions.