Geisha Kow­lessar

For­mer min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Sub­has Pan­day, has said that un­der the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions, the pres­i­dent can award monies to de­tainees who would have suf­fered loss­es.Pan­day, in an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, said since the cur­few was im­posed, he was ex­am­in­ing ex­act­ly what rights peo­ple main­tained."If peo­ple were held un­der the An­ti-Gang leg­is­la­tion and were not charged, then that be­comes a grey area in the law," he added.At­tor­ney Mar­tin George said prop­er checks and bal­ances must be put in place to en­sure pro­ce­dur­al fair­ness."You can't go and lock up peo­ple for a few days and then re­lease them with­out ev­i­dence...it would be a grand "PR" stint and then what have we re­al­ly achieved un­der the state of emer­gency?" George ques­tioned.He said the 21 men from Nel­son Street, Port-of-Spain, who were re­leased from po­lice cus­tody on Mon­day were "well with their rights" to file le­gal ac­tion."They have every right to seek le­gal re­dress and I ex­pect this to have a spin-off ef­fect which would start to un­rav­el very soon," George added.

REG­U­LA­TIONS

Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions, 2011.

Sec­tion Six:

No per­son shall be li­able to any suit or ac­tion in re­spect of any act done un­der law­ful di­rec­tion and au­thor­i­ty pur­suant to the pro­vi­sions of these Reg­u­la­tions but the Pres­i­dent may, in his dis­cre­tion, or­der that com­pen­sa­tion shall be paid out of the pub­lic funds to any per­son up­on be­ing sat­is­fied that such per­son has suf­fered loss or dam­age by rea­son of the ex­er­cise of any pow­ers con­ferred by Reg­u­la­tion 3, oth­er than sub­reg­u­la­tion (2)(j) there­of and reg­u­la­tion 4.