Sunset clause, power to President among changes in new bill

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

Al­though Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar told Par­lia­ment that of­fi­cers op­er­at­ing in des­ig­nat­ed closed ar­eas “must use” body-worn cam­eras, the Gov­ern­ment’s new­ly in­tro­duced Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill does not make their use manda­to­ry in every cir­cum­stance.

The leg­is­la­tion, pub­lished on­line just hours af­ter the Prime Min­is­ter’s state­ment yes­ter­day, pro­vides that a po­lice of­fi­cer or mem­ber of the De­fence Force “shall, as far as is pos­si­ble hav­ing re­gard to avail­able re­sources, use a body-worn cam­era” while con­duct­ing spe­cial op­er­a­tions in a closed area.

That qual­i­fi­ca­tion means the re­quire­ment re­mains con­tin­gent on the avail­abil­i­ty of body cam­eras and oth­er re­sources.

The pro­vi­sion mir­rors word­ing con­tained in the Gov­ern­ment’s pre­vi­ous Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) Bill, which stat­ed that mem­bers of the joint force were re­quired to use body-worn cam­eras “as far as is pos­si­ble hav­ing re­gard to avail­able re­sources.”

The new bill, how­ev­er, ex­pands over­sight of body-cam­era record­ings by ex­plic­it­ly grant­i­ng ac­cess to footage and re­lat­ed da­ta to the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty, po­lice in­ves­tiga­tive bod­ies, the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions and the Of­fice of the Om­buds­man.

An­oth­er sig­nif­i­cant ad­di­tion is a sun­set clause and pow­er giv­en to the Pres­i­dent.

Clause 26 states that the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Act will re­main in force for two years from the date of com­mence­ment, af­ter which it will au­to­mat­i­cal­ly ex­pire un­less Par­lia­ment en­acts fur­ther leg­is­la­tion to ex­tend or re­place it.

No sim­i­lar pro­vi­sion was in­clud­ed in the pre­vi­ous ZOSO Bill.

The re­vised leg­is­la­tion, which the Gov­ern­ment says now re­quires on­ly a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty to pass, al­so de­parts sub­stan­tial­ly from the frame­work of the ear­li­er ZOSO pro­pos­al.

Un­like the pre­vi­ous bill, which ex­press­ly stat­ed that it would op­er­ate notwith­stand­ing sec­tions 4 and 5 of the Con­sti­tu­tion and there­fore re­quired a three-fifths spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty, the new leg­is­la­tion con­tains no com­pa­ra­ble con­sti­tu­tion­al over­ride. The ear­li­er ZOSO Bill was ul­ti­mate­ly de­feat­ed in the Sen­ate af­ter fail­ing to se­cure the re­quired spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty sup­port.

In­stead of cre­at­ing Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions, the new bill di­vides Trinidad and To­ba­go in­to sev­en polic­ing dis­tricts. Six dis­tricts com­prise group­ings of mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties in Trinidad, while To­ba­go forms the sev­enth dis­trict.

With­in those polic­ing dis­tricts, spe­cif­ic lo­ca­tions may be des­ig­nat­ed as “closed ar­eas” where en­hanced se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures can be im­ple­ment­ed.

Un­der the bill, the Pres­i­dent may de­clare an area closed if sat­is­fied on rea­son­able grounds that pub­lic safe­ty and peace are threat­ened by es­ca­lat­ing vi­o­lent crime, in­clud­ing homi­cides, shoot­ings, kid­nap­pings, gang ac­tiv­i­ty, il­le­gal weapons or gang in­tim­i­da­tion, and that or­di­nary law en­force­ment mea­sures are in­suf­fi­cient to ad­dress the sit­u­a­tion.

That is an­oth­er no­table de­par­ture from the for­mer ZOSO leg­is­la­tion.

Un­der the pre­vi­ous bill, the Prime Min­is­ter had the au­thor­i­ty to des­ig­nate a ge­o­graph­i­cal area as a Zone of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions once cer­tain con­di­tions were met.

The new bill trans­fers that au­thor­i­ty to the Pres­i­dent, who may de­clare a closed area by or­der, sub­ject to neg­a­tive res­o­lu­tion of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for im­pos­ing cur­fews with­in closed ar­eas al­so rests with the Pres­i­dent.

Once a closed area has been de­clared, the Pres­i­dent may im­pose a cur­few to fa­cil­i­tate a spe­cial op­er­a­tion, re­quir­ing res­i­dents to re­main on their premis­es dur­ing spec­i­fied hours un­less ex­empt­ed by the Or­der or au­tho­rised through a per­mit sys­tem.