An­na-Lisa Paul

An or­der com­pelling Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Brig John Sandy to ap­pear in court yes­ter­day, to de­fine the phrase "out of doors," was can­celled when the mag­is­trate had a change of heart. The sum­mons was is­sued by Mag­is­trate Melvin Daniel two weeks ago and was yet to be served on Sandy.

Daniel's rul­ing was the lat­est de­ci­sion in the mat­ter in­volv­ing Diego Mar­tin res­i­dent Anslem George, who was ar­rest­ed for breach of cur­few dur­ing last year's state of emer­gency and is now chal­leng­ing that de­ci­sion. Daniel al­so ruled yes­ter­day that Hansard records con­tain­ing state­ments made by Sandy dur­ing the Sen­ate ses­sion when he was asked to clar­i­fy the phrase "out of doors" were al­so not ad­mis­si­ble in court.

Sandy was ex­pect­ed to ap­pear be­fore Daniel in the Port-of-Spain Fourth Mag­is­trate's Court yes­ter­day but was a no-show. Rep­re­sent­ing Sandy's in­ter­est, at­tor­ney Deb­o­rah Peake, SC, con­vinced Daniel that it was "in­ap­pro­pri­ate" to have sum­moned the min­is­ter to court in the first place.

Ques­tion­ing the rel­e­vance of hav­ing Sandy ap­pear be­fore the court, Peake said it was up to the court to make a de­ter­mi­na­tion on the phrase and ren­der a de­ci­sion. Re­fer­ring to the de­ci­sion by George's at­tor­ney, Vince Charles to have Sandy ap­pear and tes­ti­fy as to what he meant by the phrase "out of doors," Peake said the de­fence was "bark­ing up the wrong tree" and it had been "whol­ly in­ap­pro­pri­ate to sum­mon a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment be­fore the court."

George, 41, of Diego Mar­tin, was charged on Oc­to­ber 26, 2011 with breach of cur­few and re­sist­ing ar­rest. When George plead­ed not guilty to the charges, the Po­lice Ser­vice Pub­lic Af­fairs Di­rec­tor, Sharon Lee As­sang, was sum­moned to tell the court what the po­lice had meant by the phrase "be­ing out of doors."

On Oc­to­ber 28, 2011, Lee As­sang was ques­tioned by re­porters dur­ing the dai­ly po­lice brief­ing about peo­ple ar­rest­ed for breach of cur­few while stand­ing in their yards. She said: "The pub­lic needs to pay at­ten­tion to the law. It is quite clear. Out­door is out­door, whether you are in your garage, gate, out­door is out­door. If you are in­side, you are in­side."

Pressed to say if stand­ing in your yard and not on the street con­sti­tut­ed a breach of cur­few, Lee As­sang, said: "You can't be out­doors and in­doors at the same time. The law is very clear in what it states." George's mat­ter was lat­er ad­journed to June 25.