Special Zones power in PM’s hands

Sto­ries by

Gail Alexan­der

A pro­posed se­cu­ri­ty law to be de­bat­ed in Par­lia­ment to­mor­row will give Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar the pow­er to de­clare high-crime com­mu­ni­ties “Spe­cial Zones,” sub­ject to search with­out a war­rant and cur­fews last­ing up to 72 hours.

The bill is list­ed on the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives’ or­der pa­per as “The Law Re­form (Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions) (Spe­cial Se­cu­ri­ty and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Mea­sures) Bill, 2026.”

Ac­cord­ing to the bill’s ex­plana­to­ry notes, it al­lows the Prime Min­is­ter to de­clare Spe­cial Zones in T&T, where “there are rea­son­able grounds to be­lieve that there is ram­pant crim­i­nal­i­ty—mur­der, gang war­fare, or high or es­ca­lat­ing lev­els of vi­o­lence—or a threat to the rule of law and pub­lic or­der.

It is geared to pro­vide for “spe­cial mea­sures for up­hold­ing and pre­serv­ing the rule of law, pub­lic or­der, cit­i­zen se­cu­ri­ty and pub­lic safe­ty with­in cer­tain ge­o­graph­i­cal­ly de­fined ar­eas” of both is­lands.

The bill is among three be­ing pre­sent­ed in the House, which re­sumes at 1.30 pm to­mor­row af­ter the Christ­mas break. The oth­er bills are the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles and Road Traf­fic (Amend­ment) Bill, 2026, and the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (Amend­ment) Bill, 2026.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie al­lud­ed to the bills at yes­ter­day’s Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress me­dia brief­ing but gave no de­tails.

Yes­ter­day, Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials said the three bills will be tak­en through all stages—from launch to pas­sage—at to­mor­row’s sit­ting.

Ac­cord­ing to the ex­plana­to­ry notes on the Spe­cial Zones bill, it seeks to curb T&T’s crime through se­cu­ri­ty force oc­cu­pa­tion of vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties.

The bill is said to be geared to “up­hold the rule of law while pro­tect­ing the fun­da­men­tal rights and free­doms of per­sons who re­side, raise fam­i­lies, work or con­duct law­ful busi­ness in a zone.”

Ja­maica es­tab­lished Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions un­der a 2017 law to tack­le high crime in spe­cif­ic ar­eas through en­hanced se­cu­ri­ty and com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment, and they are reg­u­lar­ly ex­tend­ed by Par­lia­ment.

The bill be­ing pre­sent­ed by the Gov­ern­ment to­mor­row has 28 claus­es. It pro­pos­es to em­pow­er the Prime Min­is­ter—the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil chair­man—to de­clare an area as a spe­cial zone.

The Prime Min­is­ter or the min­is­ter re­spon­si­ble for na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty will be re­quired to make a state­ment to Par­lia­ment with­in 14 days of the date such an or­der is made.

Where a zone has been de­clared, the Prime Min­is­ter shall des­ig­nate a mem­ber of the T&T De­fence Force (not be­low the rank of ma­jor) nom­i­nat­ed by the Chief of De­fence Staff (CDS) and a mem­ber of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (not be­low the rank of su­per­in­ten­dent) nom­i­nat­ed by the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to be joint­ly in charge of op­er­a­tions with­in the zone.

Joint Com­mand (JC) mem­bers will al­so be “trained in hu­man rights, use of force and com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment ini­tia­tives.” A Joint Force (JF) will al­so op­er­ate.

No­tice of an area be­ing de­clared a Spe­cial Zone will be pub­lished and dis­played in con­spic­u­ous lo­ca­tions to en­sure it is brought to the at­ten­tion of peo­ple with­in the zone and peo­ple seek­ing en­try there.

Law en­force­ment ac­tiv­i­ties will be con­duct­ed to rid a zone of all il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties, firearms, weapons, am­mu­ni­tion and oth­er con­tra­band.

Ac­cord­ing to ex­plana­to­ry notes, the com­mand’s pow­ers in­clude es­tab­lish­ing a cor­don around/with­in a zone and im­pos­ing a cur­few in a zone.
Ex­plana­to­ry notes al­so stat­ed that the CoP and CDS may im­pose a cur­few in the zone be­tween spec­i­fied hours, re­quir­ing peo­ple to re­main with­in their premis­es dur­ing those hours, un­less oth­er­wise au­tho­rised in writ­ing by the JF mem­ber in charge of en­forc­ing the cur­few.

It’s pro­posed that a cor­don shall op­er­ate for a pe­ri­od not ex­ceed­ing 24 hours. Al­so, a cur­few can op­er­ate for a pe­ri­od not ex­ceed­ing 72 hours. The cur­few will be pub­lished.

The bill em­pow­ers JF mem­bers to search a per­son, ve­hi­cle or place with­out a war­rant with­in a zone if they rea­son­ably sus­pect an of­fence has been/is be­ing/is about to be com­mit­ted.
Pow­ers will be ex­er­cis­able re­gard­ing peo­ple from the zone who fled the area and are out­side of its bound­aries.
An or­der shall not ex­ceed 180 days.

The Prime Min­is­ter, af­ter con­sul­ta­tion with the CoP and CDS, may amend, vary or add to the ge­o­graph­i­cal lim­its or the pe­ri­od of time of a zone—sub­ject to af­fir­ma­tive res­o­lu­tion of Par­lia­ment.

Dur­ing an op­er­a­tion, a per­son may not be de­tained/ar­rest­ed in a zone un­less prop­er grounds can be de­ter­mined by the per­son in charge. Nor­mal crim­i­nal law pro­ce­dures shall be ap­plic­a­ble: no­ti­fi­ca­tion of the rea­son for ar­rest and be­ing brought be­fore a mag­is­trate to de­ter­mine whether the ar­rest is jus­ti­fied.

The bill re­quires a spe­cial three-fifths ma­jor­i­ty vote for pas­sage in the House and Sen­ate. The Gov­ern­ment, with 26 seats plus two To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty MPs, has suf­fi­cient to pass the bill in the House. It will re­quire two more votes to pass the bill in the Sen­ate.

A JF mem­ber may re­quire a per­son with­in a zone whose iden­ti­ty is un­known to dis­close their full, cor­rect name, in­clud­ing any alias, and their full, cor­rect ad­dress if sus­pect­ed to be in the course of com­mit­ting/to have com­mit­ted/to be about to com­mit an of­fence or if they can as­sist in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion of an of­fence.

A per­son with­in a zone re­quest­ed by a JF mem­ber to dis­close their iden­ti­ty shall not, “with­out rea­son­able ex­cuse,” fail to com­ply. Giv­ing a false name or ad­dress car­ries a $20,000 fine on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion.

Ob­struct­ing, threat­en­ing or as­sault­ing a JC or JF mem­ber per­form­ing a du­ty will al­so be an of­fence car­ry­ing—on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion—a $50,000 fine and one year’s im­pris­on­ment.

Among the con­di­tions ap­ply­ing to those ar­rest­ed/de­tained, they will be al­lowed vis­its from a spouse, part­ner, fam­i­ly mem­ber, re­li­gious coun­sel­lor, reg­is­tered med­ical prac­ti­tion­er, and at­tor­ney.

Joint Force mem­bers will wear body cam­eras “as far as is pos­si­ble, hav­ing re­gard to avail­able re­sources” when con­duct­ing op­er­a­tions.

Weapons, in­clud­ing the bal­lis­tic sig­na­ture and am­mu­ni­tion as­signed to JF mem­bers, will be reg­is­tered with the T&T Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre pri­or to the con­duct of zone op­er­a­tions.

A ten-mem­ber so­cial com­mit­tee will de­vel­op a sus­tain­able so­cial and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment plan for the zone. It will in­clude the area’s MP and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of gov­ern­ment agen­cies.

A re­view of the law will be con­duct­ed by a Joint Par­lia­men­tary Com­mit­tee—the first, no lat­er than three years af­ter the de­c­la­ra­tion of the first zone.

SPE­CIAL OP­ER­A­TIONS PRO­CE­DURES WITH­IN ZONES IN­CLUDE:

Ar­rest/De­ten­tion

• Where the Joint Force is car­ry­ing out an op­er­a­tion in a zone, a per­son shall not be ar­rest­ed/de­tained un­less the of­fi­cer in charge is sat­is­fied there are rea­son­able grounds.

• A per­son ar­rest­ed/de­tained must be told as soon as is rea­son­ably prac­ti­ca­ble, in a lan­guage which he un­der­stands, of the rea­son for his ar­rest/de­ten­tion, un­less the cir­cum­stances are such that the per­son should know; and im­me­di­ate­ly, or as soon as is rea­son­ably prac­ti­ca­ble, be tak­en be­fore a mag­is­trate who shall de­ter­mine whether or not there are rea­son­able grounds for ar­rest/de­ten­tion.

• A per­son shall be re­mand­ed in cus­tody not ex­ceed­ing 48 hours and, at the ex­pi­ra­tion, be tak­en be­fore a High Court judge.

• Where a mag­is­trate is not sat­is­fied that the ar­rest/de­ten­tion is rea­son­ably re­quired in the in­ter­est of jus­tice, he shall or­der the per­son to be re­leased im­me­di­ate­ly.

• Where a per­son is in cus­tody for 36 hours and no or­der has been made by a mag­is­trate un­der sec­tion 18(3) of the bill, the of­fi­cer in charge of the po­lice sta­tion shall in­form an of­fi­cer not be­low the rank of as­sis­tant su­per­in­ten­dent (“pre­scribed of­fi­cer”) of the cir­cum­stances of the case and shall record in the sta­tion di­ary the fact that this of­fi­cer has been so in­formed.

• The pre­scribed of­fi­cer shall, up­on re­ceipt of the in­for­ma­tion, cause such in­ves­ti­ga­tions nec­es­sary to be made in­to the cir­cum­stances of each case and cause such peo­ple to be brought im­me­di­ate­ly be­fore a mag­is­trate.

• Every com­plaint made by or con­cern­ing a per­son ar­rest­ed or de­tained shall be record­ed in the sta­tion di­ary.

• Where a per­son re­quests the vis­it of a reg­is­tered med­ical prac­ti­tion­er of his choice, oth­er than one pro­vid­ed by the State, the per­son shall be re­spon­si­ble for any ex­pens­es in­curred.

• A per­son ar­rest­ed/de­tained shall be al­lowed to re­ceive ar­ti­cles of food and cloth­ing or such oth­er ar­ti­cle as nec­es­sary in the in­ter­est of his health or wel­fare and shall not be al­lowed to re­ceive any ar­ti­cle which may en­dan­ger his health/safe­ty, any of­fi­cer or an­oth­er per­son.

• Where it ap­pears to any Joint Force mem­ber or any per­son in charge of the su­per­vi­sion of in­di­vid­u­als ar­rest­ed/de­tained at a prison/po­lice sta­tion. that any in­di­vid­ual is ill/re­quires med­ical at­ten­tion, whether or not com­plain­ing of ill­ness, they shall, with­out de­lay, take nec­es­sary steps to get the med­ical at­ten­tion.

Po­lice shall not seize:

(a) any tool of a law­ful trade or busi­ness; or

(b) any ar­ti­cle or doc­u­ment that is sub­ject to le­gal pro­fes­sion­al priv­i­lege.

Po­lice of­fi­cers shall take nec­es­sary steps to en­sure that a list is com­piled of all ve­hi­cles, ar­ti­cles or doc­u­ments seized, and a re­ceipt of this is in­clud­ed in the list and giv­en to the own­er or per­son in pos­ses­sion of the item as soon as pos­si­ble.

Search/Seizure

• A fe­male shall be searched by a fe­male po­lice of­fi­cer.

• Any ve­hi­cle, ar­ti­cle or doc­u­ment seized shall be se­cured in such place as an of­fi­cer des­ig­nat­ed by the Joint Com­mand may say.

• At­ten­dance, at all stages of the ve­hi­cle search, of the own­er/oc­cu­pi­er of the place/the own­er or per­son in pos­ses­sion of the ve­hi­cle or their agent.

• The own­er, oc­cu­pi­er or per­son in pos­ses­sion of the place or ve­hi­cle must be af­ford­ed every op­por­tu­ni­ty to ob­serve every­thing done con­cern­ing the search.

• If any­thing seized is per­ish­able, it shall be dis­posed of in such man­ner as may be ap­proved by the of­fi­cer des­ig­nat­ed.

• Where the of­fi­cer has rea­son­able grounds to be­lieve that any seized item will no longer as­sist in pre­vent­ing or con­trol­ling pub­lic dis­or­der or is no longer of ev­i­den­tial val­ue in any crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings, they shall im­me­di­ate­ly cause the ve­hi­cle, ar­ti­cle or doc­u­ment to be re­turned to the own­er/per­son in pos­ses­sion/agent.

• A per­son who be­lieves a ve­hi­cle, ar­ti­cle or doc­u­ment seized ought to be re­turned may ap­ply to a mag­is­trate for its re­turn.